Naruto Zombies!
by God of Static
Summary: When Orochimaru creates a virus that turns people into flesh-eating zombies, will Team Seven be able to survive? Character deaths, multiple pairings, and excessive gore!
1. When the Man Comes Around

Alright, now before anyone asks, yes, this is based off of MARVEL ZOMBIES. If you're a fan of that comic series then I hope you'll be able to enjoy this just as much. And don't worry, this isn't a crossover.

That said, I'm warning you now that this story going to get pretty gory. So if you don't like reading that sort of thing, leave now.

You have been warned.

* * *

NARUTO ZOMBIES!

Chapter 1: When the Man Comes Around…

* * *

In a small room, hidden underground in the bowels of one of Orochimaru's hideouts, Kabuto worked steadily on his latest experiment. Lying before him on a blood-stained operating table was a fresh cadaver, just provided to him by Orochimaru. The traitorous medic-nin smiled to himself as he picked up the scalpel, He had been looking forward to this moment for some time now, and now that he had a fresh corpse he could finally begin. 

Before he even had a chance to make the initial incision however, a sinister laugh echoed from down the hall. Sighing to himself, Kabuto placed down his scalpel and looked up to see Orochimaru himself standing in the doorway. A large grin was plastered on the snake-sannins face, looking bigger than usual.

"Kabuto, I have something to show you," He said, his tongue snaking its way out of his mouth excitedly.

Kabuto nodded and pulled a sheet over his cadaver once more, planning to come back later. Asking Orochimaru to hold on for a second was definitely out of the question.

Silently Kabuto followed Orochimaru out of the room and down the dark, stone hallways. Candles flickered as they past, twisting their shadows along the walls as they made their way to one of Orochimaru's "private" labs.

The two soon approached a large steel door, sealed tight with a complex locking mechanism and several seals. Orochimaru hadn't spared any expense in keeping whatever was in there safe. Or contained, it was hard to figure sometimes.

Orochimaru raised his hand to the locks, ready to undo the seals when a figure spoke up from behind them.

"We are supposed to be training now."

Orochimaru's eye twitched in annoyance, and he turned to look at Sasuke who stood just a few feet behind Kabuto looking as apathetic as ever.

"Later Sasuke," Orochimaru told him, "I have something else to take care of first."

Sasukes red eyes traveled up the length of the door, analyzing the structure. "What's in there?"

Once again Orochimaru smiled, "Nothing you need to concern yourself with yet. Maybe if you're good I'll let you play with it later."

Sasukes eyes narrowed just a bit, showing his displeasure with being brushed aside like that. However, Sasuke still turned and proceeded to walk back to his room, not wanting to bring on the Snake-sannins wrath. Not yet, anyway.

Kabuto swallowed the lump that had developed in his throat as Sasuke disappeared into the darkness. He really didn't like being between them when they got like this, it made him…nervous.

Without further ado, Orochimaru turned back to the door and proceeded to undo the seals and locks. Soon enough the large, thick door opened revealing a large laboratory on the other side, filled with some of the more disturbing experiments of the Sound Village.

The two men walked into the dimly lit room, passing by large canisters filled with strange fluids any even stranger creatures. The room was dimly lit, the only light sources being the canisters and the flickering florescent lights above them which did little to drive away the darkness.

Orochimaru led Kabuto to the back of the room, leading him to a large, steal panel with a lever situated on the wall next to it. His smile growing even wider Orochimaru placed a hand on the lever, pulling it down with a loud clunk, starting a series of mechanisms behind the stone walls that slowly caused the steel panel to slide away.

The lab was filled with creaks and groans as the panel slowly disappeared into the wall, revealing iron bars behind it. As the panel disappeared completely Kabuto was greeted with the sight of a large jail cell, shrouded completely in darkness.

His curiosity piqued, Kabuto slowly approached the cell, "What exactly did you want to show me Orochimaru-Sama?"

Orochimaru chuckled, "Give them a moment Kabuto, there still a little disoriented."

Confused, Kabuto looked toward his master only to jump back in surprise when a loud series of growls cried out from the cage, and several lumbering forms smashed up against the side reaching for him.

Kabuto stumbled back, falling on his butt in shock as he saw the things reaching out for him with wide, pale eyes. For a minute he wasn't able to believe what his eyes where telling him, but after second was able to compose himself and get back on his feet.

"What are they?" Kabuto asked as he pushed his glasses back into place.

"They," Orochimaru answered, his smile growing wider as more of the things started reaching out from behind the bars, "are the key to the destruction of Konoha."

* * *

"So you all understand the mission, correct?" Kakashi asked as they walked down the lonely dirt road through the forests of Fire Country. 

"We sure do Kakashi-sensei!" the energetic blond yelled out. "But…I'm pretty sure Sai missed it, so you better go over it again!"

"_Some things never change, do they Naruto?" _Kakashi would have rolled his eyes if that hadn't meant taking them off the latest "Icha Icha" novel.

"Don't try and use me as an excuse for your lack of a penis, Naruto" Sai remarked, his face never changing from that faux smile of his.

Naruto turned red with anger and jabbed a finger into Sai's chest. "Listen you, I'm getting really sick of you always…!"

"Knock it off Naruto," Sakura scolded. "You should have been paying more attention to Tsunade when she gave us the mission."

Naruto opened his mouth to comment, but a glare from Sakura shut him up.

Sakura let out a sigh, "I think you should go over the mission specifics again, Kakashi-sensei."

"If I must," the team leader replied, never taking his eyes off his little orange book, "Apparently there's a town a few more miles from out location that has been attacked by bandits several times over the past few weeks. Apparently they've been looting stores, hurting people, and making life dangerous for the people living there. We're supposed to go there, wait for the bandits, and take them out using whatever force deemed necessary.

"Seems a little stupid for bandits to attack a town not to far from a ninja village," Naruto commented, earning a shush from Sakura.

"That's what we thought," Kakashi continued. "The message we received seemed suspicious, so Team Guy will be meeting up with us there on there way back from there own mission, just to check up on us."

Naruto thought for a moment (well, a couple moment actually), "Team Guy? So we'll be…?

"Yes Naruto," Kakashi interrupted. He wasn't exactly thrilled about having to join up with his "eternal rival" on a mission.

Naruto wasn't of the same opinion however, evident from the large grin on his face. It had been awhile since he's seen Lee, and he'd been wondering how much stronger the mini-Guy had become.

"So what's this town supposed to be like?" Sakura asked.

"It's a little farming community that does some business with Konoha," Kakashi answered, "Nothing particularly interesting about it, a couple fields, some buildings, just your average small village."

"Yeah well, I hope it's not too boring!" Naruto said as they continued walking.

He would live to regret those words.

* * *

The smoke coming from the direction of the village was the first thing they saw when the stepped out of the woods. Immediately Kakashi had them pick up the pace and had them running at top speed through the fields, crushing vegetable matter beneath their feet. 

Kakashi smelled it before he actually saw it, blood, and a lot of it. He signaled for his team to get ready and ran up ahead of them towards the village entrance, hoping they weren't too late.

He stopped just in front of the town entrance, a large welcome sign held in the air by two tall poles. It existed as a greeting to visitors as they passed through the town, which was really more of a long road with a series of buildings on each side. Of course, looking at it now it really wasn't much of anything.

The town was in shambles with absolutely no sign of life anywhere. Every building appeared broken into, the door ripped off their hinges and widows broken in from the outside. He could see the source of the smoke, a small house at the end of the street. The fire was nearly out, but that currently that was the least of his concerns.

Corpses lined the street everywhere you looked, lying in pools of dried blood. Men, women, children, there bodies lay in the sun now nothing more than skeletons with bits of rotting flesh attached.

The body of a person lay a few feet away, their body so mutilated he could no longer tell if it was a man or a woman. Their skull had been cracked open on a rock and lay there with a gaping hole in its side, bits of brain lining the edges. Their ribcage had been smashed open and their arms and legs ripped out of there sockets leaving everything a bloody mess. He couldn't be sure if the set of arms lying a few feet away from the scene were theirs or not, due to the vast amount of body part spread about.

Kakashi had seen horrible things in his life, a lot of them when he was no older than his students were several years ago, but even his stomach churned a bit at the sight.

"Dear god…" Sakura mumbled as the rest of his team caught up.

Kakashi didn't have to look at them to imagine there the horror on their faces. Well, except maybe Sai.

"What happened?" Naruto said, the shock evident in his voice

Kakashi didn't answer him, not for lack of wanting to; he just had no idea what to say.

Sakura wanted to tare her eyes away from the carnage, but for some reason found she couldn't move. "We…we were to late…"

Naruto clenched his fists and as he felt his horror quickly turn into rage, "those…those FUCKERS!"

Sakura, and to a lesser extent Kakashi, were shocked at his outburst. Naruto had never been one to swear. Ever.

Naruto raised his fist and stared at it. His nails were digging so hard into his palm they were drawing blood. "I'm going to hunt down every last one of those bandits and…"

Narutos words were drowned out in Kakashi's mind as he examined the surroundings. At first glance it looked like this place had been attacked by bandits, the villagers killed off and bodies left for the scavengers to pick clean. But that didn't sit right with Kakashi. He had survived this long by looking underneath the underneath, and he wasn't about to stop now.

Something was wrong, he knew that much. If the bodies were lying here long enough for the animals to pick clean then how did that fire get started? Also some of the blood looked fairly recent, and the severity of the mutilation on the bodies was at a level no animal was capable of. Not to mention the fact there wasn't a single animal track on the ground.

But that wasn't what bothered him the most. There was something else, something else that was horrible off about this whole situation…

"Why are there no flies?"

All eyes fell to Sai, who stared out at the massacre with an emotionless look on his face.

"Rotting flesh is supposed to attract flies correct? So why can't I see any?" Sai explained.

"_Of course,"_ Kakashi thought, that's what he was missing.

"Hey…yeah," Sakura said, just now getting over the shock of the situation. "There should be lots of them by know, especially with…with…" she brought a hand to her mouth and bit her fist. She couldn't break down now, not again. Those days were over.

"Kakashi-sensei, look!"

Naruto pointed out towards a lone figure coming out from behind a building, seemingly unaware of their presence. It was a man, his cloths disheveled and covered in blood. He stumped forwards as he crossed the street, his eyes focused on the ground.

Team 7 watched, horrified, as the man stumbled towards a chunk of leg lying on the dirt and, after studying it for a second, raised it to his blood-caked mouth and bit into it.

Kakashi had seen some things in his lifetime, things he would never, ever tell anyone else, things that most people could never imagine existing in the world. But Kakashi had never seen anything quite like this.

A look of disgust appeared on the man's face and he spit out the chunk of flesh, muttering something that Kakashi couldn't make out.

Naruto suddenly stepped forward, "HEY YOU!"

The man's face snapped in their direction at the outburst, dropping the chunk of leg to the ground.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!" Naruto continued to yell, "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"

"Naruto, be quite." Kakashi warned him, but of course by then it was already too late.

The man eyes locked onto them and he ran started running straight for them, not giving a thought to who he might be dealing with.

Sakura's eyes widened in shock as something caught her eye. "His arms broken," she pointed out.

She was right. As the man came closer they could see his left arm was bent at an awkward angle and the broken bone was spearheading its way out of the flesh. This didn't slow the man down though, as he seemed either unaware or unconcerned with his injury.

"Naruto!" Kakashi called out, "use your shadow clones and stop him, but make sure he's still able to talk."

Naruto nodded and after a few hand signs four Naruto clones appeared around him. The clones ran foreword and tackled the man before he got to close, and after a somewhat violent struggle they had him pressed down on the ground face-first, his good arm pinned behind his back.

Kakashi and his team approached, careful to avoid and of the corpses, and Naruto dispelled the remaining three clones, leaving the fourth to keep the man held down.

"What's with his eyes?" Naruto asked, staring at the man's pupils.

Upon a closer look the others could see the man's eyes were a pale shade of gray, and not just the pupils but the iris's as well. Naruto almost couldn't make witch way the man was looking.

In a way they reminded him of Hinatas eye, but not by much. While you could clearly see the life behind the Hyuga heirs' eyes, his seemed…"

Dead.

Kakashi ignored Naruto and knelt down next to the man, trying to overlook the pool of dried blood they were standing in. "Who are you?" he asked calmly.

The man eyes locked on to Kakashi as he struggled violently against the clone, but he made no effort to speak.

"Who are you?" Kakashi asked again, a bit more force behind his voice.

"Please...just give me a bite…" the man said, his voice raspy and ruff.

Kakashi nodded and reached into his pocket, pulling out an energy bar. Unwrapping it he held it up to the man's face, who looked disgusted at what he was being offered.

"That's not what I meant!" He screamed as his struggles suddenly became more frantic, and even though he had no chance of escaping it was still unnerving.

"What do you mean then?" Kakashi asked, although he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

"Just a taste…just a piece of flesh…" His pale eyes stared up pleadingly, "All I need is one bite…I'm not greedy…"

"I believe he's talking about **our** flesh," Sai said, not without a hint of unease.

Kakashi looked down at the man, looking at the blood stains around his mouth and hands. Those, along with the way the man stared at him with those pale eyes of his, made Kakashi believe this was a correct assumption.

"What happened here?" Kakashi asked, taking out a single kunai to add edge to his words.

The man barley gave the weapon a passing glance. "A bite, then I'll talk. Just GIVE ME A FUCKING BITE!"

It was obvious to Kakashi that this man was not in the right state of mind, the only question was why? Was it some kind of genjutsu? Was he always like this? Why…

Why wasn't his arm bleeding?

Kakashi looked closer at the man's broken arm, a bit difficult with him struggling like that, and examined the wound. He could see the bone sticking right out of his skin, tearing through flesh and muscle as it moved. Around it he could see signs of decay, but no signs of healing or blood loss. It was almost as if…

"Sakura," Kakashi called to the kunoichi, gesturing towards the arm.

Sakura understood immediately and bent down to exam the injury. She placed her hands over it and with practice ease let her chakra flow into wound. Her teammates watched the expression on her face change to one of concentration, to confusion, and then to fear.

She jerked her hands away from the man and wide eyes she looked up at her team.

"This man is dead."

* * *

"What do you mean he's dead?!" 

The team stood around on the second floor of one of the deserted homes of the town, the only one without blood everywhere. Sai was standing guard outside, in case any trouble showed up.

Secured to a bed with his limbs tied to the bedposts and his mouth gagged lay the "man" in question, struggling violently against his bonds. Kakashi feared that he was going to rip his arm out of his socket at the rate he going.

"I mean exactly what I told you," Sakura snapped at Naruto, trying to explain what she knew was impossible. "This man is dead, I've checked. He's not pumping blood and he's not showing a pulse. His heart, his liver, his kidneys, all the major organs are non-functional! He's dead by every definition of the term!"

All three sets of eyes fell to the man, who was still staring at them with an insane look of hunger. He had been there for the past hour as Sakura examined him, and had shown no signs of tiring anytime soon.

"Maybe he's a puppet of some kind?" Naruto asked, trying to ignore the muffled screams coming from the bed.

Sakura shook her head, "No puppet is that good."

"A jutsu perhaps?" Naruto asked again, trying to come up with something.

This time Kakashi answered, "No." He pulled his forehead protector away from his eye, "I've looked him over with the Sharingan and could find no trace of a jutsu." He covered his eye again, "If it is a jutsu then it's one the Sharingan cannot understand." His tone implied that he thought this was unlikely.

Sakura pulled her arms to her chest, the entire situation creeping her out. "I did sense chakra in him, but it was…different somehow."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean?"

"Well…" Sakura tried to find the right words, "he has the same amount of chakra found in an untrained civilian, but it didn't…feel right. Like his normal chakra had been altered somehow. I don't know how else to explain it."

"But that doesn't make any sense!" Naruto yelled as he became more confused by the situation.

"Quite Naruto," Kakashi ordered, although he did agree with his outburst. This whole situation seemed wrong, and Kakashi couldn't shake the feeling that something even worse was just around the corner.

Sai suddenly appeared in the doorway, interrupting Kakashi's thoughts. "Team Guy is approaching from the west, it looks like they have injured."

* * *

Kakashi could see Guy carrying Neji on his back as he approached, followed by Tenten and Lee. Sakura immediately rushed towards them, her medic instincts kicking in at the sight of Neji. 

"What happened?" He asked as Team Guy was led into the house, Guy setting Neji on a nearby couch to let Sakura examine him.

"We were attacked by a group of sound-nin," Guy tried to explain. "But they weren't…they…"

"They weren't alive?" Naruto asked.

Guy stared a Naruto, the surprise evident on his face.

"We ran into something like that ourselves," Kakashi explained, "we have it tied up upstairs."

"I stabbed them," Tenten said, "I stabbed each of them in the heart and they kept coming…"

"What has happened out here?" Lee almost shouted, "I have never…!

"Everyone quite!" Kakashi ordered in sharp tone. "We need to figure out what's happening."

Kakashi looked over at Sakura who was applying fresh bandages onto the injury on Neji's shoulder. "How is he?"

Sakura grimaced. "Not good. He's running a fever and he seems to only be on the verge of consciousness." She looked towards Guy, "How long has he been like this?"

"A couple hours," Guy told her. "We ran into the sound-nin just about three hours ago, Neji spotted them first and warned us ahead of time. They were trying to ambush us, so we had Tenten make the first strike…"

"All my shots were dead on…they should have been incapacitated!" Tenten shouted, fear and confusion taking over. "What the hell were those things?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Kakashi told her calmly before motioning for Guy to continue."

"Tenten's attacks were dead on, I could tell. But they attacked us like the kunai imbedded in them weren't even there." Guy took a deep breath and took a seat on one of the chairs, "Neji was there first target and naturally he activated his Byakugan…"

"It didn't help," Lee said as he stared out the window.

Guy nodded, "I don't know what he saw, but whatever it was able to throw Neji off enough that one of them was able to get close enough to grab a hold of him and…**bite** him on the shoulder"

Kakashi wished he could be surprised, "Were you able to kill them?"

Guy laid his head in his hands, "I'm not sure. Lee and I were able to get them off Neji and keep them at a distance, but none of our Taijutsu had any effect on them. As soon as they hit the ground they just got back up again. It wasn't until Tenten…"

Tenten cut him off. "I sliced the legs off one with a sickle, stabbed one in the temple, and severed the ligaments in the others knees and elbows." She swallowed the lump in her throat, "Two stayed down, but the one missing his legs still tried coming after us so I pinned it to the ground with a spear."

"We left them there to get help for Neji," Guy continued, "but even then we could still here them calling towards us, begging us to…feed them."

"Yeah, they seem to do that." Kakashi said.

Guy didn't respond to that, "Neji said that they didn't have any chakra points, and that they were dead to him." He looked towards his student, "That's all he was able to tell before the fever set in."

Sakura looked nervously at the bite on Neji's shoulder. "We need to get him back to Konoha as soon as possible."

Guy got to his feet and nodded, "I agree. We should…

"Guy-sensei!" Lee suddenly shouted from the window, "There are people outside!"

Naruto was at the window almost instantaneously. "Are you sure they're people or…?"

Lee took another nervous glance outside, "I…I think you should see for yourself, Naruto-san."

* * *


	2. Dead Man Walking

Aright, this is your last warning. This chapter is going to be a bit gory and is a sign of things to come in the following chapters. Turn back now if you're whole-heartedly against that.

And don't worry; I'm working on the next chapter of "A Few Second's Difference." I was working on it before I wrote this but had to pause to get his out of my system. Now that this chapters done I should be able to get that one done before the weekend.

* * *

**NARUTO ZOMBIES!**

Chapter 2

Dead Man Walking…

There had to be at least 30 of them up there, looking over the area presumable for survivors. You could see there sound forehead-protectors they wore, although where they came from was the least of Kakashis concerns.

"There's the one I pinned down!" Tenten whispered.

The one she was referring to was being carried on the back of a much fatter zombie-nin, his arms wrapped around the fatty's neck. His legs had been severed just below the waste, and the stumps hung uselessly in the air.

"What does it take to kill these guys?" she grumbled, looking over the zombie-nin in shock.

Their skin was a leathery and gray, giving them the appearance of weeks old corpses. Their bodies were covered in various wounds, both minor and severe. They all wore outfits reminiscent with the sound five, complete with those purple ropes worn by Orochimaru's followers.

The one in the middle seemed to be the leader, and out of all of them he seemed to be the worst off. Standing at an impressive six foot six he carried a large sword on his back about the same length as Zabuza's, but only half the width. His arms were crossed against his chest, but that didn't hide the numerous chunks of flesh he had missing from them, large enough so you could make out the bone underneath.

But the most gruesome thing about him though had to be his face. While one half of his face appeared normal aside from some decomposition, the other half had been torn to shreds. Bits of flesh and muscle hung from his bloody skull like streamers, it was a wonder his whole face hadn't fallen off.

By all accounts, this was the most fucked-up thing Naruto had ever seen.

Kakashi stared at them through the window, processing this new information. "There're zombies," he finally said.

Sakura looked strangely at her old sensei, "What?"

"Zombies," Kakashi explained, "I read about them in the 'Icha Icha Halloween Special.' The hero had to fight off a legion of people who had been raised from the dead as zombies. They couldn't feel pain of be killed, except by destroying the brain."

"So what happened in the book?" Sakura asked.

Kakashi patted her head, "I think you're a little young to be hearing about that sort of thing Sakura-chan."

"_How can he still be perverted in times like this?"_ Sakura thought to her self.

Kakashi backed away from the window, motioning for the rest to do the same. "Alright then, we need a plan."

"We need to get word back to Konoha as soon as possible," Guy said. "They need to be warned of this, and we need to get Neji to a hospital as soon as…"

"That won't do any good," Sakura told him, "Neji condition is deteriorating rapidly. By the time we got him to a hospital it would be too late. The best chance I have of helping is here and now."

Guy reluctantly nodded, "Alright, but word still need to be gotten to Konoha."

Kakashi nodded, "I agree, this is obviously some new plot by Orochimaru and time could be off the essence." He turned towards Sai, "Sai, I want you to sneak out the back and make a run for Konoha while we distract the enemy outside. Avoid any…zombies… and don't engage the enemy if you don't have to, understand?"

"Yes sir," Sai nodded.

"Alright," Kakashi continued, "here's what we're going to do…"

* * *

"I'm telling you guys they came through here!"

"Whatever ya cripple," one of the other zombie-nin grumbled." I don't see anything here but our leftovers."

"Shame really," the fat one carrying the cripple said, "if we hadn't been so careless we could have made these guys last longer. Just look at all that wasted meat…"

"Well next time have more self-control fatty!" The cripple growled, almost getting himself thrown off by the fatty.

The group of zombie-nin stood on a house overlooking what was left of the village. The only reason they had come back here at all was because they found their legless comrade crawling on his hands yelling something about fresh meat, but so far though they hadn't seen so much as an insect.

"Can someone else take this guy? I'm getting tired of holding him." The fat one said.

"What the hell you complaining for fatty?" The crippled zombie asked, "You know we don't get tired anymore."

"I mean I'm getting tired of your constant whining!" Fatty shot back.

"Enough." The tallest zombie spoke, an air of authority about him. "Bickering isn't going to find our next meal any faster."

"Oh stop acting all high and mighty Deddo!" Fatty told him, "Orochimaru may have put you in charge, but as far as we're concerned it's every man for himself!"

In a flash Deddo held the insubordinate ninja by the scruff of his shirt, holding him up to eye level. He growled into his face, revealing his blood-stained teeth. "Care to repeat that fatty?"

"Hey watch it! I'm trying to hold on to him here!" The cripple yelled.

Fatty just gritted his teeth and shook his head no; not wanting to get his body messed up more than it already was.

Deddo grinned, "That's what I thought." He let go of the fat zombie and turned his attention to the rest of his men. "I want the rest of you to scout the area and let me know if you see anything, you understand?"

"Right away sir!" The zombie-nin replied in chorus, saluting their leader.

"Good, now as for me I'll…"

Deddo was interrupted when a kunai suddenly came soaring out of the house just across the street, embedding itself in fatty's gut.

"Hey Deddo, I see something," one of the other zombies said, getting a chuckle out of some of the others.

Deddo wasn't laughing however as he saw the little scrap of paper attached to the kunai suddenly bust into flames.

"Shit, it's an exploding tag!" The cripple shouted, pushing himself off his ride.

The zombie-nin barely had time to react as the tag went off in fatty's gut, creating a huge explosion that sent the zombies flying and incinerated fatty. The groups were thrown violently into the air and hit the ground like rocks.

Tenten burst out the front door of the house, getting the attention of the fallen zombies as she pulled out a pair of scrolls and tossed them in the air.

Deddo landed on his feet in front of the remains of the building, staring at the kunoichi with a look of hunger in his eyes. Ignoring the scrolls she threw he shouted to his comrades "LOOKS LIKE MEATS BACK ON THE MENU BOYS!"

The other zombie-nin gave various shouts of approval and joined their leader in the attack; only to be caught by surprise as Tenten took to the air and joined her scrolls.

Tenten spun in the air, twirling her trademark scrolls around her body. In an instant a barrage of different weapons filled the air, raining down on the zombies below.

Deddo looked up in the air and saw several bladed weapons honing in on him. "Aw shit," he muttered, dodging a pair of sickles and deflecting a number of shrukin with his sword.

The other zombie-nin weren't as lucky. The sound of metal piercing dead flesh filled the area as various swords, sickles, axes, and other sharp instruments pierced the undead ninjas throwing some to the ground and cutting of body parts on others.

Tenten landed gracefully on the ground, letting the empty scrolls fall around her. She looked up, not as surprised as she would have been to see the zombies getting to there feet again, her weapons still embedded in their flesh.

Deddo pointed his weapon towards Tenten. "Dinner time" he said, much to the delight of his comrades.

Tenten only smirked, and before the zombies had a chance to rush her she pulled her hands back, giving them a view of the strings she had connected to her fingers.

As if on there own her weapons began to move again. The blades ripped themselves out of their targets, dealing more damage as they sliced through muscle and bone and severed the limps of most of the zombies, sending them collapsing to the ground.

She jerked her hands upwards sending her weapons flying into the air and prepared to send them crashing back down on her undead opponents until a voice from above cut her off.

"Missed one."

Tenten looked up in shock to see Deddo in the air, having jumped too quickly for her to see. In one precise move he severed the strings connecting her to her arsenal which caused the weapons to fall useless to the ground, although they did impale a couple more zombies.

"You're mine!" Deddo shouted as he fell towards her, his mouth opened wide and sword ready to cleave her in two.

Tenten sudden smile caught Deddo by surprise, and just as he was about to come with slicing distance of her Kakashi burst up from beneath the ground and dealt an effective uppercut into Deddo's jaw, sending him flying into the air.

"_They had this planned?!"_ Deddo mind screamed as he went flying into the air. Before he had a chance to compose himself however he saw the form of might Guy jump from the roof, landing a terrific spinning kick into the side of his face sending him soaring horizontally through the air and crashing into a cart of vegetables.

Guy landed next to Kakashi on the ground and struck his "nice-guy" pose, "Hear me legions of the undead! You have no hope of defeating we who are filled with the vitality of the springtime of youth!"

Kakashi sighed, "Must you always say something like that?"

Out of the original 35 zombies, only 21 were able to get back to there feet after Tenten's attack, the rest were either trying to crawl on severed limbs or just not moving altogether.

"Who the hell are these guys?" One of them asked, pulling a knife out eye socket.

"No idea," another answered, "but I call dibs on their brains."

The zombie-nin rushed forward, the various weapons imbedded in their bodies doing little to impede their progress. Kakashi and Team Guy got ready and prepared themselves for the fight.

"Remember, don't let them get a hold of you," Kakashi reminded his teammates.

Guy nodded, "Don't worry about us, we can handle these creatures." He flashed a smile towards Kakashi, "My eternal rival, what say we see who can subdue the most zombies! If I lose I'll do 600 one-armed pushups!"

"And I will do 600 sit-ups if I cannot keep up with Guy-sensei!" Lee added as he came out of the house, posing in the same manner as his idol

Kakashi rolled his eyes just as the first zombie-nin approached him, and with a swift movement grabbed him by the arm and flipped him over his back and landed a swift kick onto its neck, effectively breaking it. The display did little to slow the other zombies, who by this point were too hunger-crazed to care about anything else.

The battle continued like that for awhile with Kakashi, Guy, and Lee punching heads and breaking bones while Tenten took out enemies from a distance, landing kunai is places to slow down the undead attackers.

While the zombie-nin weren't very skilled, they more than made for in their stamina. No matter what was done to them they kept coming, and the four man team was finding things a bit more difficult than they had expected.

Kakashi blinded another zombie with a pair of kunai and made a quick scan of the area, not seeing a particular zombie joining the fight. "Where did that one with the sword go?"

Tenten was the first to spot him, "Lee, behind you!"

Lee turned to see Deddo's sword being swung right at him and ducked just in time to avoid it, back flipping away as Deddo made another swing.

"You have no chance against the springtime of youth!" Lee shouted as he dodged another slice.

Deddo snorted. "Oh shut up already."

With a surprising amount of speed Deddo dodged one of Lees attacks and, using his sword like a pole vault, followed up with a powerful kick of his own into Lees chest and sending him crashing to the ground.

Lee hit the ground hard and looked up to see Deddo ready to stab his sword into his gut. Lee rolled out of the way just in time, missing the blade by a few centimeters and aiming a precise kick into Deddo's face.

To Lee's surprise Deddo dissolved into a pile of water, _"he was a water clone?"_ He though as he turned around to see the real Deddo aiming his sword for his chest, too close to avoid.

Deddo attention suddenly shifted to the right and he quickly moved his sword to block an attack from Kakashi, pushing him back several yards and putting Lee out of harms way.

"I got this," Kakashi told Lee.

Deddo looked at Kakashi, the flesh covered side of his face forming a half-smile. "Underestimating me, don't you think?"

Kakashi just pulled out a kunai and twirled it on his finger, "Not really, not too difficult taking down a beaten up corpse."

Deddo chuckled. "Yeah, you did a good job taking down the others," he gestured towards Tenten and Guy who had a group of dispatched zombies lying around them and were taking down any others that came there way. "But how many more of us do you think you can take?"

Kakashi paused as he saw Deddos half smile grow wider, and took a glance down the street. As if on cue a group of fifty more zombie-nin appeared at the end of the street, each running on their rotting legs towards them, crazed looks on their faces.

"So, still think you're going to have any easy time with us?" Deddo asked.

Just then, an orange blur jumped down from rooftops and separated into several dozen orange blurs, each one landing in front of the hoard and cutting them off from Kakashi and the others.

The zombies paused for a minute upon seeing the small army of Naruto clones, half of them trying to figure out a strategy to combat this new obstacle, the other half trying to figure out which one was the real flesh-covered one.

"Your all going to pay for what you did to this village," Naruto (well, one of them anyway) growled, his face contorted in rage.

"Hey, can you eat a shadow-clone?" One of the zombie-nin asked.

Another shook his head. "I don't know but I'm gonna find out!"

With that the zombies all charged forward, clashing head-on with the army of Naruto-clones. The clones tore through the zombie, slicing away at the dead flesh while the zombies tried to get a firm grip on something, biting into whatever clone they could get their hands on to and cursing when they disappeared into a puff of smoke.

"You were saying?" Kakashi asked Deddo.

Deddo just cursed and charged forward, his sword ready for the kill.

Meanwhile back in the house, Sakura was trying her hardest to keep Neji alive. She had healed his wounds completely with her chakra but nothing she did seem to able to fight back the infection circulating through his body. At the rate this was going Neji was going to…

"_Don't think about that,"_ Sakura told her self, _"focus on the now. You can do this!"_

Neji had completely passed out of consciousness awhile ago, and his breathing was becoming more and more rapid by the minute. Sakura placed her hands over his forehead and used her charka to try and lower his fever, but for whatever reason it seemed useless!

"_Come' on Neji, you can fight this!"_

* * *

"I haven't had a fight like this in a while," Deddo smirked, slicing the spot where Kakashi was standing. "Do you have any idea who I am?"

"Some deadbeat ninja from Kirigakure?" Kakashi answered, dodging Deddos blade and aiming a kunai for his throat.

"Close," Deddo said as he avoided the attack and started performing a series of hand signals. "I am Deddo, formally one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist." With a deep breath he let loose a high pressure stream of water from his mouth, aiming right for Kakashi.

"Really?" Kakashi asked, unimpressed as he copied the attack with his sharingan and countered with a stream of water of his own.

Deddo nodded as their jutsu's ended, "Yes, but those days are over." He dodged another attack and swung his sword at Kakashi midsection. "No more slavery to a village that sees you as a weapon, no more fighting for unknown reasons, no more pointless killing." Kakashi jumped over his sword and let loose a volley of shurukin, which Deddo let hit him in the chest. "Now I have a new reason to exist, one given to me by the great Orochimaru. Now the only reason I exist Kakashi, is to feed my insatiable hunger for…GLUK!"

Deddo was silenced as Kakashi drove a kunai into the bottom of his jaw and through the roof of his mouth, effectively nailing his mouth shut.

"You talk too much," Kakashi said as he watched Deddo stumble away trying to remove the weapon.

* * *

"Dammit Neji stay with me!" Sakura shouted as she felt the pulse on the Hyuga steadily weaken. A few seconds ago the genius had stopped breathing and was giving no response to any kind of stimulus.

She placed her hands onto his chest and frantically pumped chakra into him in a futile attempt to get his heart pumping, but no matter how much she pumped in, his body seemed to reject it.

"Don't die Neji, whatever you do DON'T DIE ON ME!" Sakura screamed at him as she felt his heart grow weaker and weaker until finally…it stopped beating altogether.

With a sob Sakura punched him in the chest, yelling out every curse she knew. Tsunade had warned that warned her that losing a patient wouldn't be easy, but she never said the first one she let die would be a friend.

Sakura slowly got to her feet, tears falling from her eyes, the fighting going outside barely registering in her ears.

She and Neji had never been close, hell she had barely ever spoken to him. But damn it he didn't deserve this!

With a scream of frustration Sakura punched a nearby table, causing it to collapse into a pile of splinters. The tears kept falling from her eyes as she tried to compose herself.

"You need to get a grip on yourself; the others need you out there!" She chastised herself, wiping the tears away. With a grim nod she gave a look towards Neji, silently begging that he'd be able to forgive her.

Then, as if by some miracle Neji's eyes opened again.

Sakura gasped, "Neji?!"

* * *

Outside the fight still raged with neither side gaining the upper hand. Through combined efforts of Tenten, Lee, Naruto and Guy had taken care of two thirds of the remaining zombies, taking them out with head shot or just damaging there bodies beyond use. Of course this had taken a lot longer than expected, and the Konoha-nin were beginning to feel the pressures of fatigue.

Kakashi was still occupied with Deddo, and although he had nailed him with dozens of shurukin, nailed his mouth shut, and nearly broken his arm the swordsman just wouldn't quit.

"How many more of these things are there?" Lee said as smashed another's zombies head into the ground.

"Hang in there Lee!" Guy called from his position some distance away, "We only need to old out for little while longer!"

During the fight the team was unfortunately separated by the marauding zombies, their numbers forcing them apart from one another and making it difficult for them to regroup. So far this hadn't been too big a problem but it still made them a bit nervous.

The wall of the house holding Sakura and her patient suddenly exploded in a barrage of splinters as a white form was thrown violently from the inside of the house and sent crashing into the wall next to Lee.

"Neji?" Lee gasped as he saw his teammate pull himself out of the wreckage of the wall. "What happened?" He asked as he reached down to help.

"LEE DON'T!" Sakura screamed as she came running out of the hole Neji had made, only to be stopped as a group of zombies made a lunge for her.

Neji looked at Lee and grabbed his hand, letting Lee pull him up and to his feet. Without warning Neji suddenly activated his Byakugan and Lee, fearing an attack, turned around to see the threat.

"What is it Nej-AGGGH!" Lee eyes screamed in agony as Neji grabbed him from behind and bit into his neck, ribbing out a large chunk of flesh and spraying blood everywhere.

Lee bashed Neji in the side of the head with his elbow, freeing himself from his grasp. Lee stumped back and grasped his heavily bleeding wound, turning around to face his teammate.

"Neji…why…?" He asked, trying to block the pain from the wound.

Neji didn't say anything in response, instead entering his gentle fist style and hitting Lee over and over again blocking his chakra points, an attack Lee was helpless to fight off.

With his chakra points closed off Lee fell helplessly to the ground, his entire body paralyzed. Not wasting a second Neji went down with him, grabbing his arm and sinking his teeth into the warm flesh.

"LEE!" Guy called out, seeing his student hit the ground. With a roar he began plowing though zombies left and right, bashing them out of his way with enough force to instantly break bone as he fought his way towards his pupil.

By the time he got there other zombies had joined with Neji, ripping and tearing at Lee's body to get a piece of the meal. Guy charged forward and grabbed two of the zombies and smashed their heads together, cracking their skulls open. In a berserker's rage he attacked the others, breaking skulls and snapping necks in his anger.

Finally, when all of them were dispatched he knelt down to his student and felt the tears fall from his eyes. It only took one look to know nothing would save his student.

Lee was barely alive by this point, coughing up blood and breathing in short pants. His left arm had been ripped off and blood poured from the large wound on his shoulder. His stomach had been torn open and his insides strewn about so badly Guy could see his intestines hanging out from the hole.

"Guy-sensei…?" Lee whispered, coughing up a more blood as he tried to talk.

Guy held his student to his chest. "Don't talk Lee…I…I got you."

Lee tried to look up at his sensei, "I'm sorry I wasn't able to become a strong Ninja…"

Guy let out a sob, "You were always one of the strongest Lee…"

Lee's body suddenly went into a series of spasms and he looked straight into Guy's eyes. "Guy-sensei…!"

Guy held lee tighter, his tears falling to the boys head. "Lee, hold on, you…you…" he suddenly felt his student go limp in his arms and he felt the pressure on his heart suddenly tighten, "LEE! LEE NO!"

Guy cradled his student's body in his arms, calling out his name and letting the tears fall form his face. He didn't want to accept it, he couldn't accept it, that after all their hard work, all their time together, Lee was…dead.

The sound of someone chewing caught his attention, and Guy looked up to see Neji standing a few feet away holding the severed arm of Rock Lee. He had nearly cleaned it to the bone and was in the process of eating some of the remaining flesh.

Guy stared at his student, a mixture of shock and horror on his face. "Neji how…how could you?

Neji finished swallowing the last piece of flesh and looked at his teacher, licking some of the blood off from around his mouth. "I'm sorry Guy…but I was **really** hungry." He tossed the skeletal arm away and entered the gentle fist fighting stance. "And I still am."

To be continued…

* * *

Please review! I love hearing from readers! Even if you don't have something good to say, say it! Really, I don't mind.

I really like the words "zombie-nin." Could you tell?

I feel bad for Lee and Guy, they are some of my favorite characters. Writing them is tough, hope I was able to stay in character for them.

For those of you throwing up right now, I did warn you ahead of time,


	3. Requiem for a Green Beast

First, let me thank everyone who left a review. Meinos Kaen, Irvin lizalde (love the name), celtic-pride, t-fly, WriterApprentice, narutodippy, and doryishness.

A special shout-out to doryishness for beta-ing this chapter!

NARUTO ZOMBIES!

Chapter 3:

Requiem for a Green Beast

Deddo wasn't doing to well.

You know, aside from being dead.

Aside from the wounds he had started out with, he had since acquired from his fight with Kakashi: one kunai to through his jaw, several broken ribs, another kunai through his left eye, and had nearly got his arms blown off by an exploding tag. To top all that off, he was now pinned to the ground by his own sword, which the copy-nin had driven through his heart.

Thank god for distractions.

"Looks like your friend isn't doing to well," Deddo told Kakashi as he dislodged himself.

"Hmm?" Kakashi's eyes followed Deddo's to see Might Guy clutching the remains of his once proud student, with Neji not far away. "Oh no…"

"Oh yes!" The zombie shouted triumphantly, "looks like my boys managed to take care of that little green guy! Won't be long before…!"

A kunai lodging itself in Deddo's throat stopped him from making any more commentary and Kakashi left the subdued zombie to get to his friend, hoping that he would be able to get there in time.

* * *

Guy sat there, his face dark as he looked down at his fallen student while Neji's words rang in his ears. Gently, he placed the cooling body of Rock Lee on the ground, closing the boy's no longer bright eyes.

Behind him, Naruto, Sakura, and Tenten came up, immediately crying out at the scene. Tenten rushed forward, taking Lee's head in her hands and unleashing a torrent of tears.

Sakura held her hand to her mouth, mouthing "No" over and over again, while Naruto looked over the mutilated body of Lee in shock, his mind unable to process what just happened.

Tenten held the lifeless head of Lee in her lap, her tears sliding from her face and falling onto Lee's bowl haircut. "Neji!" she called out, "Why? Lee…Lee was your friend!"

"Sorry Tenten," the zombie-Neji replied, his mouth still dripping with Lee's blood. "But you can't possible understand how hungry I am right now."

Tenten bit back more tears, "Neji…!"

"That's not Neji!" Naruto growled, "The Neji I know would never do something like this!"

Neji, or what was once Neji, looked at Naruto impassively. "Listen Naruto, I feel bad for Lee too, but…"

Naruto let out a scream of rage, interrupting Neji and putting him back on his guard. Red chakra began to pour from the fox boy as Naruto charged forward, creating a set of four new clones as he went after the zombified Neji with killing intent.

Zombie-Neji jumped back as the clones and the original all attacked simultaneously. Driven by rage, their attacks were sloppy and uncoordinated, so the Hyuuga prodigy had little trouble avoiding the blows.

With a spin, Neji activated his ultimate defense, creating a cocoon of chakra and sending the Narutos flying. He followed this with a jump into the air, grabbing the Naruto he perceived to be the real one and biting into his neck, only to groan in disappointment as he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Sakura let out a gasp. _"He's really trying to kill Naruto,"_ she thought. _"What's happened to him?"_

As zombie-Neji landed gracefully on the ground, another Naruto had already gotten to his feet and with the help of one of the clones, was preparing a Rasengan in his hand.

Neji charged forward, dodging and blocking the attacks from the other Naruto clones as he made his way toward the original, who charged at him with the Rasengan primed and ready.

The two forces clashed, and in a flash of lightning-fast moves, Neji dodged the Rasengan and hit Naruto lightly in his arm, sealing his chakra points and effectively cutting off his main weapon. This would have sealed Narutos fate; had not the Naruto Neji was fighting disappeared as soon as he made the hit.

Nejis eyes widened in shock _"That one was a clone too?!"_

A sudden movement of the other Narutos behind him caught his eyes and Naruto, the real one this time, attacked with another Rasengan, one that he didn't intend to miss with.

Neji turned around to block the attack, but it was too late. The Rasengan hit him point blank in the chest and ripped into the zombie's body, tearing his skin to shreds.

Naruto grimaced as the attack made contact, his rage dying down once more. Underneath all that anger, his heart was breaking under the loss of two good friends, Lee and Neji.

The clasping of cold, dead hands on his arm dragged him back to reality and Naruto's eyes widened in shock as he saw Neji holding onto the arm driving the Rasengan into his gut, holding on for all it was worth.

Naruto let out a scream of pain as he felt a surge of chakra entering his arm, sealing off all his chakra points there and cutting off the source of control for his attack. A second later, without anything to keep it contained, the Rasengan exploded violently sending both combatants flying through the air. Naruto smashed into the stone wall of a house, breaking apart the stone and landing in a heap on the ground while Neji crashed into another building on the other side of the street.

"Naruto!" Sakura screamed, rushing to her friend.

Getting to her knees, Sakura helped her groaning teammate sit up. Carefully she took his arm, assessing the damaged.

Needless to say, Naruto's left arm looked like hell. His palm was badly burnt and cut up from the Rasengan becoming unstable, thus leaving it a bloody wreck. That was combined with that where the two hand-shaped burns along his forearm from where Neji had touched him.

"_This isn't good,"_ Sakura thought. _"he can't use his Rasengan like this."_

Not forgetting the ever-looming threat, Sakura turned her attention to the other side of the street where Neji's body had landed. To her shock and fear, Neji climbed out of the rubble of the wall he had hit like it was nothing, his body still working like it hadn't just taking a direct hit from a very powerful attack.

But what scared Sakura the most was Neji's stomach. The Rasengan had torn right through Nejis cloths and shredded his skin like a cheese grater, leaving a huge bloody circle in the middle of Nejis chest. From Sakura's vantage point, she could easily make out the muscles of Nejis chest, once concealed by a layer of skin and now unveiled to the world, twitching as he moved.

"That was incredible," Neji said as he looked over his chest. "If I hadn't pumped as much chakra as I did to shield against that he would have gone right through me."

"Don't come any closer!" Sakura screamed at him, pumping chakra into her fists. "You've seen what I can do, and know I'm not afraid to do it!"

"Sakura," Neji said calmly. "I think it's already been established that you can't hurt me. You should give up now and save us all the…"

The flash of a kunai being thrown interrupted his speech, and Neji quickly caught the offending weapon with his hand and threw it aside. "Tenten, that really wasn't very smart."

"That was a warning," Tenten told Neji, wiping away the tears from her eyes. "If you even dare take one more step, I'll cut you to pieces."

Neji shook his head. "Tenten, you've never been able to beat me in training, you know about my absolute defense, and you're clearly outnumbered."

Neji gestured to the remaining twenty to thirty zombies that had started to circle around him, seeing him as the strongest one among them and the best candidate to get their next meal. Naruto, Sakura, and Tenten all gritted their teeth; the odds of this fight were not in their favor.

"What makes you really think you can defeat me?" Zombie-Neji asked calmly.

Tenten, mustering all the strength she had, stood her ground. "I've watched you for years; I know all your tactics. Besides," she pulled out a handful of shurukin. "That was the real Neji that beat me all those times, not some monster in his place."

Neji narrowed his eyes, and in a flash, was upon her. Tenten jumped back to let loose a volley of shurukin, but one look at the face of her teammate caused her to hesitate for just a second. That was a grave mistake.

Neji, taking advantage of her hesitation, pumped chakra into his legs and propelled himself forward, driving past Tenten's defenses and landing a hit on her major chakra points, the ones connected to her major organs. Tenten cried out in pain and staggered back, coughing up blood as she falling on her back.

The other zombies cheered and started forward, and Neji with his mouth opened wide open, dived down to rip out a fresh chunk of meat from his other teammate, only to be smashed to the side by a green flash.

"Sensei…" Tenten whispered before she blacked out.

Guy looked down at Tenten, his face dark. Slowly he turned his gaze toward Neji who was just getting back to his feet.

"I always had faith in you Neji," Guy said solemnly. "Never once did I ever lose faith in you. But this…all of this…"

As Guy stuttered to find the words, Neji got back to his feet, his eyes falling back to the unconscious form of Tenten, more concerned for his lost meal than his sensei's speech.

Guy grimaced with disgust, wishing to tear his eyes away from the monster his student had become but not daring to. "This is my fault. I should have protected you; I should have been there to keep this from happening."

With a twitch of his muscles, Guy's body suddenly flared up with an enormous amount of energy, far surpassing the amount he had just a second ago. Neji's Byakugan eyes widened in shock as he saw Guy open up his sixth gate, and with it, turn the entire tide of the battle.

Guy's body flared up with chakra and with a mighty roar yelled his final promise to Neji, "SO I'LL BE THE ONE TO RELEASE YOU FROM THIS MISERABLE EXSISTANCE!"

By this time the other zombies could no longer hold themselves back from the prospect of another meal and charged forward. Only Neji, the only one with an idea of what was happening, stood back.

With a roar, Guy charged forward smashing through the wave of zombies, tearing them apart with his bare fists and sending the undead monsters smashing into the ground. He plowed through them with ease, making a beeline for his target, who took a step back nervously as he watched the green beast get closer.

In two seconds, Guy had made it through the twenty to thirty zombies between him and Neji, and putting all his strength into one punch, he let his fist fly into his former pupil's face. Neji released a shield of chakra around his head, trying to protect himself from the bezerker rage but it was almost useless as Guy's fist broke through and smashed into his face.

Neji didn't feel it when his nose was driven back into his skull. He didn't feel it when his skull cracked under the pressure of Guy's fist, almost dislodging his eyeballs. In fact, the only thing that registered with Neji at that moment was one thing:

"_I didn't even get to finish my meal!"_

* * *

Sakura stood over Tenten, putting all her medial skills into keeping the girl alive. Behind her, Naruto stood posed and ready to fight any zombies that should decide to attack, even though with his right arm still messed up, he would have some trouble.

"_I can't fix these wounds,"_ Sakura thought as she pumped her own chakra into the injured girl. "_I can keep her alive myself, but if we don't get her to a hospital quickly, she could be crippled for life!"_

A puff of smoke popped up in front of them, and Kakashi was suddenly there with them, quickly leaning over Tenten and looking over her wounds.

"How does she look?" he asked Sakura.

"Not good," Sakura replied grimly. "I don't have the knowledge on how to repair damage this extensive. We have to get her back to Konoha or there could be major long-term consequences."

Kakashi nodded, "All right then. Sakura, Naruto, escort Tenten back to Konoha. If Sai got back ok, they should already be preparing for our arrival."

"But Kakashi-sensei…!" Naruto shouted at him, not wanting to turn tail and run.

"Me and Guy can handle things here," Kakashi interrupted. "And Tenten needs medical attention from people who have treated these kinds of wounds before."

Naruto still didn't want to leave however. "But Kakashi-sensei…"

The loud crash of Neji plowing into the side of a house filled the background followed by the sounds of screams from zombies as they tried to take down an unstoppable Might Guy. "I'm not going to argue this. You two get her out of here and let us handle this. It's what Lee and Neji would have wanted."

Naruto's voice died in his throat, and he cast his eyes downward in disappointment of himself.

"Alright then," Sakura said, picking Tenten up upon her back. "Let's go. Naruto, you lead."

Naruto nodded and the two started off, giving one last look back before retreating.

"Be careful Kakashi-sensei." Sakura whispered.

* * *

Deddo looked over the battle that was happening around him. His zombie ninjas were being torn to shreds by the man in green, and the copy-nin was making short work of any stragglers. He hadn't seen any sign of that kid that turned since the attack from the green guy, but it more than likely he was done for.

Taking his sword in both of his decaying hands, he slipped into the shadows. He was almost mad with hunger, but he wasn't stupid enough to just jump into the fray.

Meanwhile, Kakashi was dodging flying corpses and other debris as he made his way toward Guy. Most of the zombies had been finished off by now, with the remaining on their way to being finished. Kakashi's main concern by this point was Guy, who looked like he was burning up most of his bodies energy and well on his way to attempting to opening the remaining two gates. If he didn't get him to calm down soon, Guy was a dead man.

Kakashi's plans were slowed however, when Deddo finally decided to launch his attack, jumping out from an alleyway and hurling a giant shurukin toward Kakashi. The copy-nin easily avoided the attack and moved to dodge another slice from the zombie's sword.

"I'm going to finish this here and now." Kakashi said as he avoided another attack.

"Don't be so cocky!" Deddo screamed at him. "Before this is over, you're going to be my dinner!"

Deddos words were short lived however, as Kakashi deflected his sword with a kunai and used the second he gained to slip behind the zombie-nin and grab him by the head, firmly locking his elbow around his neck.

"This ends now." Kakashi said simply, ready to snap the zombies neck.

The smirk on Deddo's face caught Kakashi's attention, but before he could act on it, he felt the tip of a cold, steel blade pierced his gut, slicing through him like butter and coming out the other side covered in blood.

"Told you not to be so cocky," Deddo told him, twisting the blade he had driven through his own gut to get to Kakashi, a move that had effectively turned the two of them into a giant shis-ka-bob.

"What…the hell…are you guys?" Kakashi said, the words hard to get out as he coughed up blood into his mask.

With a chuckle, Deddo pulled his sword out from the two of them, removing the only support Kakashi had and causing the copy-nin to collapse to the ground. The zombie-nin stood triumphantly over the fallen man as Kakashi's blood began to pool on the ground.

"We're the new masters of this world," Deddo said as he raised his sword to his lips, and licking the blood off. "And after I finish devouring you, I'm going to…huh?"

The sound of someone yelling caused Deddo to turn around, and to his shock, came face to face with the fist of Might Guy.

"Oh shi-!" were the last words spoken by the zombie-nin as Guy's fist smashed into his face, going straight through the front of his skull and out the other side.

With a grunt, Guy pulled his fist back, ripping through the remaining parts of brain and skull left and hurling Deddo's headless body to the ground. Shaking off the brain matter and pieces of bone, a very tired-looking Guy leaned over his friend. "How are you doing my eternal rival?"

"Fine," Kakashi choked out. "Are the…?"

"I believe I got them all," Guy reassured. "I'm going to get you back to Konoha."

Kakashi coughed up another mouthful of blood and Guy pulled back his mask, letting the red liquid pouring out of his friend's mouth.

"Lee's body…" Kakashi whispered.

Guys clenched his fists so tight, the knuckles turned white, but quickly composed himself. "I WILL come back for him, but he would never forgive me if I slowed myself down by carrying him with us."

Picking his friend up and resting him on his back, Guy took off running. He gave his favorite student one last look as he passed him, PROMISING he would be back for his AND Neji's body, because even after all that happened here, they were both his students. And nothing would ever change that.

* * *

Well, that about wraps everything up. The zombies are pretty much taken care of and it looks like everyones going to be ok. You know, aside from Lee and Neji who are, well...dead.

I've the got the fourth chapter almost all written. I'll finish it tonight and after it gets betaed I'll be sure to post it, by the end of the week at the hopefully.

Until then, leave a REVIEW. The more reviews the faster I post!


	4. In Which There is Much Discussion

Thank-you's to t-fly, celtic-pride, BIG BOY LLOYD (because cool people talk in ALL CAPS) chattingbox, narutodippy, edwardelric16, and Pyro Flare

Also, a BIG thanks to dooryishness for beta-ing again! Thanks for finding time in your busy schedule.

NARUTO ZOMBIES!

Chapter 4:

In which there is much discussion.

* * *

A steady wind blew away from the once-lively village, carrying with it the stench of death and decay. Not to far away, carefully concealed under several bushes, Kabuto watched over the remnants of Orochimaru's "experiment."

Kabuto had been there since the beginning, and after having watched the villagers be ripped apart by the zombie-nin, and the battle between them and the Konoha ninjas, who happened to have one of their own turned with disastrous results, he felt something growing in the pit of his stomach that he hadn't felt for a long time.

Fear.

There was no way Orochimaru could hope to control these things. Something that could turn the most powerful ninjas in the world into nigh-unstoppable instruments of death may sound like a useful weapon, but not if there was no way to control them! If this was allowed to spread…

A bit of movement coming from the village caught Kabuto's eye and he moved himself into a more hidden position. From his vantage point, he could make out two figures, but wasn't sure who or what they were. He adjusted his glasses a bit and after a minute of staring, he made out the most important feature of one of the figures.

It was staring right at him.

* * *

Sakura held Tenten's head as she poured water down the injured girl's throat. For the past hour, Tenten had been slipping in and out of consciousness from the amount of damage her body had taken from Neji's attack, and Sakura was being as careful as she could to keep her patient alive.

Naruto sat on a boulder not to far away; his eyes cast low to the ground. The loss of his friends had hit him hard and for past hour he hadn't spoken a word.

The rustling of leaves from behind them switched the two ninjas into battle mode, preparing themselves for whatever would jump out at them. But nothing prepared them for what appeared from the woods.

To their delight, Kakashi limped out from behind the trees, clutching his bloody stomach and leaning up against a tree. His forehead protector was covering his sharingan eye again, and his mask was back up, although it did look a little bloodstained (with a wound like that, Sakura figured, you would probably cough up a lot of blood). His hair was disheveled, more so than usual, and obstructed his other eye.

"Yo," he said casually.

""Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura called out happily, smiling at seeing the first good news since this morning.

"You really have to stop calling me that," Kakashi said lightly.

"Where's Guy?" Tenten asked, struggling to sit up only to be pushed back down by Sakura.

"Injured," Kakashi answered. "The stress of opening the Gates was too much for him and he collapsed a while back. I would have carried him with me but…" Moving his hand he revealed the large wound in his stomach covered in blood. "It was hard enough to get here on my own."

"Are you going to be alright?" Naruto asked, his voice shaky with worry at the prospect of losing another person close to him.

Kakashi waved it away, "I'll be fine. Guy however needs help immediately. Sakura, I need you to come with me while Naruto takes Tenten."

Sakura nodded and grabbed her things "How far is he?"

"Not far…" Kakashi said as he looked off into the distance.

Naruto walked over to Tenten and hosted the girl onto his back. "Ready to go Tenten?"

"Guy-sensei…" the injured girl whispered.

"He'll be fine, don't worry." Kakashi said as he reached a hand out to Sakura. "Could you give me hand Sakura? I'm kind of having a little trouble here…"

Sakura reached out for his hand, only jump away when a flash of green jumped between them and aimed kick right for Kakashi's head. The copy-nin dodged the attack and jumped into the air, landing safely on a tree branch overhead.

"What the hell?!" Naruto yelled, his movement jerking the girl on his back awake again.

The three chunin looked up at a panting Might Guy, who stood before them with a bleeding shoulder and sweat dripping from his face. Tenten's face lit up at seeing her sensei, but his actions seriously confused her.

"Guy-sensei, what are doing?" she asked in a weak voice.

"Why did you attack Kakashi, Guy?!" Sakura asked, her eyes falling on his bleeding shoulder. The wound there looked…familiar.

Guy turned to face them, his face dead serious. "I'm sorry but…but…"

"Hmm, you where always one for a dramatic entrance Guy…" Kakashi said from above.

All eyes looked up at Kakashi, who was now standing straight up like the wound in his chest wasn't there. His uncovered eye now looked down at them; wide open and revealing a pale, gray pupil.

"No…" Sakura whispered, tears starting to build in her eyes.

"That's…that's not possible..." Naruto added, his entire body shaking.

"It happened while I was carrying him to Konoha," Guy explained, looking us at his friend. "He changed midway here. I think whatever causes the change was passed onto him when he was stabbed with a weapon that was covered in a zombie's fluids."

Zombie-Kakashi nodded in agreement. "I figured that myself. Seems being bitten isn't the only way to catch whatever causes this."

"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura screamed, "Please, tell me it's not true!"

Kakashi looked down at his student, looking almost apologetic. "It's true. In fact, I was planning on eating you as soon as I got you far enough way from Naruto."

Sakuras throat dried instantly at the confession. Her sensei…her friend…had planned to kill her.

"He already got me on the way here," Guy said as he held onto his bleeding shoulder. "You three need to leave, now."

"No!" Tenten cried out weakly, "We can't leave you here to die!"

Guy chuckled, "I'm already finished. In a few hours I'll be just like them." He looked his pupil in the eye. "But I'll die before I let that happen."

"That can be arranged." Zombie-Kakashi said.

Gut gritted his teeth. "Sakura, Naruto, get out of here! I'll hold him off as long as possible! And Tenten?"

Tenten looked up at Guy, and the teacher looked proudly at his student.

"You're the best weapons-user in Konoha, man or woman" he told her, believing every word he spoke. "And I know with all my heart that you have what it takes to be the greatest Kunoichi in the entire village." With a smile, Guy added, "No offense Sakura."

The joke didn't take though, and with a grunt Guy moved forward to face off against his eternal rival. "Now get out of here! Get back to Konoha and send as much help as you can! And what ever you do, and let the Spirit of Youth always be with you!"

Sakura and Naruto both held themselves back, turning and running away from the scene as fast they could, their minds trying to deny everything that had happened in the past few hours. The entire way Tenten cried out for them to turn back and help, looking over her shoulder to watch her sensei give her a final thumbs-up before they faded from view.

With the others gone, Guy looked up at Kakashi, who was twirling a kunai on his finger. "Well my eternal rival," Guy said with a grin. "Looks like this will be our final battle."

"Looks like," Kakashi said as he pulled up his forehead protector to reveal his sharingan. "Can't say I'm too upset about that."

Guy chuckled, "You never did enjoy our fights, did you?"

Kakashi shrugged, "Eh, maybe a little."

With that, no more words were spoken, and the zombified copy-nin leaped down to fight Konoha's Green Beast for what could be the last time.

* * *

Kabuto ran as fast as he could through the forest, knowing fully well he was exposed but couldn't care less. All he cared about right then was getting as far away from them as possible.

The sound of a branch snapping triggered his instincts and he immediately came to a stop, giving him just enough time to dodge the green flash that tried to smash his skull in. The attacker showed him no mercy however and he went in again, and Kabuto found himself dodging punches and kicks that moved so fast they appeared only as green blurs.

A sudden hit to his chest sent him flying into the trunk of a tree, hitting it with a loud crack. His attacker moved in for the kill, but Kabuto got the best of him by pumping chakra into his hands and pulling himself up the tree, flipping himself over and jumping off the trunk so that he landed behind the enemy and was given enough time to create his chakra scalpels.

His opponent, none other than Rock Lee, stood proudly before him. Although he once could have been considered a green beast, the former ninja of Konoha could only be looked at now as an abomination.

Lee's body was an absolute wreck. His green training suit now hung off him in rags and was so blood-stained it looked more red than green. Where his left arm had once been there was now a bloody stump with bits of muscle and bone hanging off it. His chest was ripped open revealing some of his ribcage and most of his organs had been ripped out of his chest cavity, but you could still see his small intestine hanging out from him, swaying with his movements. His remaining arm and legs were still in pretty good condition however, and that was they only reason he was still able put up a fight.

Zombie-Lee looked at Kabuto with grey eyes. "You're pretty good! But don't think that just because I have one arm that I'll lose!"

Kabuto could feel the sweat sliding down the back of his neck. _"This doesn't make any sense,"_ he thought. _"He was only bitten a few minutes before he died. Can the virus really work that fast?"_

The feeling of another presence behind him caught his attention, and Kabuto looked up to see another zombie looking down at him.

Neji stood on one of the larger tree branches above Kabuto, his arms crossed over his ripped up chest. After his brush with Guy's fist, the Hyuuga prodigy's face now resembled a smashed-in eggshell. His nose had been driven back into his skull and his face was now a pulpy, bloody, mess. Lucky for him his eyes were still intact, and they now looked down at Kabuto with a hungry stare.

"You should gib ub now," Neji told him. "You're already sdarding do swead, and we haven'd eben begun to ged dired."

"_What did he just say?" _Kabuto thought at his mind raced, trying to find an escape route.

"Hey, let me take him Neji! You already got the chance to feed!" Zombie-Lee yelled at the Hyuuga, gesturing towards his missing arm.

"I barely god anydhing with all dhe hands grabbing ad you!" Neji shot back.

Lee scowled, "At least you…!"

"He's gedding way." Neji interrupted.

"Huh?" Lee attention turned back to the fleeting form of Kabuto, who was taking advantage of the momentary distraction to escape.

Both zombie-nin ceased their argument and immediately took after their fleeing meal, but the medic had already managed to put some distance between them so he already was starting to disappear from sight.

"Quick Neji, activate your Byakugan!" Lee shouted as he tried to keep up with the zigzaggingmeat sack ahead of them.

"Id IS agdivaded," Neji replied, "Deh viens jusd arn'd bumbing any blood."

"Oh yeah," Lee said, forgetting about their undead state. "Hey, why does your voice sound funny?"

"Guy-sensei," Neji said with a frown, "he smashed by nose in. Mages id harder to dalk."

"Huh?" Lee asked.

Neji ignored the comment, instead keeping himself focused on his dinner.

* * *

An hour passed before Kabuto felt he was safe enough to stop. He had lost sight of the zombies half an hour ago, but that didn't mean he was safe. From what he had seen, they would chase him to the ends of the earth.

He kept his back to a large tree, trying to catch his breath as reached for a solider pill. Popping it into his mouth he sighed in relief, letting the chakra enhancer work itself into his system. Little did he know how soon he would need it.

A huge cracking noise from behind him caused him to jump back in shock. Behind him, the tree he had been resting against shuddered and cracked in half, the upper half almost landing on the medic before he rolled out of the way.

Kabuto gritted his teeth as he saw Lee standing behind the tree, apparently having cracked the tree in half with an impressive display of strength.

"Aha! Found you!" Zombie Lee shouted triumphantly.

Kabuto activated his chakra scalpels and prepared for the attack, only to be caught off guard when it came from behind him.

Neji jumped out from the fallen treetop and grazed Kabuto on the arm with his gentle fist technique, nearly paralyzing the medics left shoulder.

The medic grimaced and retaliated with his own attack, trying to slice at something that would slow the zombie down. Of course, up against a person who excelled in hand to hand combat, he found it difficult enough to avoid being hit himself.

Lee charged forward, sliding underneath a distracted Kabuto and laying a well-placed kick to the back of his knees. Kabuto toppled over backwards but saved himself at the last minute by flipping over on his hands and righting himself back up. Disappointed, Lee rolled to his feet again as Neji once again went in for the kill.

Kabuto ducked and dodged the attacks, trying to find an opening in Neji's defense. Neji wasn't giving him one though, and after a few seconds Kabuto felt the pain of one of his chakra points being closed in his shoulder as Neji struck him. Kabuto gripped his teeth in pain and slashed at Neji with his chakra scalpels, but it was too late.

Without missing a beat, Neji tapped his fingers on Kabuto's chest, blocking his chakra points and paralyzing almost his entire right side. With his prey down for the count, Neji grabbed Kabuto by the shoulders and opened his mouth wide, biting the junction where the shoulder meets the neck.

Kabuto screamed in pain as Neji ripped out the hunk of flesh sending torrents of blood flowing from the wound. The medic had no time to even heal himself as he felt Lee bite into his leg, causing Kabuto to collapse under his own weight and hit the ground.

Lee and Neji wasted no time and started feasting on Kabuto, sinking their teeth into his flesh. The air was filled with Kabuto's screams of agony as the zombies ripped him apart, tearing out organs and muscle. The screams continued as Kabuto tried in vain to heal himself, but the damage was far too extensive to do anything for him. Eventually the screams dues down and all that could be heard were the sounds of feeding.

Not a few feet away a tall figure stepped out from behind the trees, several chunks of flesh missing from his body and covered in blood. He waved cheerily at the duo. "Ah! Good to see you up and about Lee! I should have known the Spirit of Youth would not keep you down."

Lee looked up from the dying form of Kabuto, his mouth stuffed with the sound-nin's liver. "Gu-fefei!"

The green beast of Konoha shook a disapproving finger at Lee. "Don't talk with your mouth full, Lee."

Lee swallowed, almost apologizing before turning his attention back to warm carcass.

Neji gave a nod towards the two, "Guy-sensei, Kakashi."

"Yo," Zombie-Kakashi said in reply as he stepped out from behind Guy, although his real attention was focused on Kabuto. "Where did you find him?"

"He was running thought the woods," Lee explained as he ripped off a piece of leg, "We chased him down."

"Ged your own." Neji told them as he watched the hungry eyes of Kakashi and Guy look over their meal.

"Now that's not how I taught you, Neji!" Guy scolded. "Share and share alike remember?" Of course, he was more upset over the idea of having to fight for his next meal.

"Let them have him Guy," Kakashi said as he took out a familiar-looking scroll. "I just got a better idea."

* * *

An hour later, the four zombie-nin found themselves sitting around the skeletal remains of Kabuto, surrounded by several sets of smaller bones. They were pretty much finished with their meal, having picked most of the flesh off their prey and were now using the opportunity to talk about what happened.

"I really don't understand Guy-sensei!" Lee said as he sucked the marrow out of Kabuto's femur. "What happened to us?"

Guy sat across from him, sitting against a tree and apparently deep in thought. "I'm not exactly sure Lee, but it would seem for all account, we are dead. Normally after a fight, I feel that my muscles feel fatigued, but I can't seem to feel anything at all."

"We sdill hab our ghagra abbarendly," Neji pointed out. "I can see id flowing dhrough us. Id's bracdically bouring oud of you Lee."

"Huh?" Guy asked, not understanding a word Neji said.

"He said we still have our chakra, and that he can see it." Lee explained.

"Yeah bud's id's weird," Neji told them. (Tried to anyway) "It doesn'd flow lige normal ghagra, and id's an odd sord of color."

Guy shook his head, "I'm sorry Neji, but we're going to have find away to fix you voice."

Neji just scowled and went back to picking through bones.

"I don't see how you plan on doing that," Kakashi commented as he scooped some more brains from the skull of Pakkun. "None of us seem to be healing at all, not that our wounds are slowing us down at all,"

"Very true! Just look at my arm!" Guy lifted his right arm, pointing to a large bite above his elbow. "You managed to tear out a large piece of muscle there, I yet I don't feel a thing! And poor Lee, he…well, he…"

"Has a hole in him big enough to fit the Hokage monument," Kakashi said as he finished off the eyeball he had managed to pry out of Pakkuns skull.

"You know," Guy said, "I don't think the ninja dogs that got away are going to let you summon them anytime soon."

"That's all right," Kakashi said as he finished off the rest of the summoned dog and threw the skull into a pile with the others. "I think all my bloods dried up by now anyways, so I couldn't even if I wanted to."

"That's another thing," Guy added, "Why do we need to eat? It's not like our bodies can digest this stuff. Lee doesn't even have a stomach and he's just as voracious as the rest of us."

Lee looked up at the mention of his name, swallowing a bit of muscle he had found stuck to a rib. They all watched as the piece of meat fell though his throat and landed in a pile in Lee's exposed chest cavity.

"Dhad's disgusding," Neji said before reaching over and grabbing a handful of meat from Lee's chest and popping it into his mouth. Lee, for the most part, didn't seem to care.

Kakashi shrugged. "Who knows? I'm more concerned with how far our bodies are going to decay."

"Why don't you try asking the sound ninja?" Neji said, holding up the severed head of Kabuto.

"YOU SONS OF BITCHES!" Kabuto head shouted at them; really pissed off that he wasn't able to push his glasses back into place in his current condition.

"Oh be quite," Kakashi told him as he got up to take the head. "What were you doing around here anyway?"

Kabuto just glared at the copy-nin, his dead eyes burning with hatred.

Kakashi sighed as he lifted the head up by the ponytail. "Not feeling talkative? Fine."

Using his hair as a rope, Kakashi tied Kabutos head to his belt letting him hang freely behind him until he was ready to talk, seeing as how torture probably wasn't a option at this point. "So what's our next course of action?

"I'm starting to get hungry again." Guy said as he stared at the pile of bones they had picked clean.

Lee stopped knawing on a bone he had picked up, throwing it back into the pile. "Yeah, me too."

Neji looked up at Kakashi, not sure how to proceed. "So…whad do we do now?"

All eyes fell on Kakashi, who stared down at the skeletal remains of Kabuto. His mind churned over the ideas going through his head, disgusted at what he was actually considering.

"There's a village not to far from here," he finally said. "We could make it there within an hour if we don't stop."

"Sounds good," Neji said as he got to his feet.

Lee nodded in agreement and joined his teammate, pausing when he noticed his sensei looking troubled. "Guy-sensei?"

Guy hesitated, not sure about what they were about to do. "Are we sure we want to do this? If we were still alive, we would kill ourselves before ever doing something like this."

The other zombie-nin stiffened. They all knew what Guy meant but the last thing they wanted to do was think about it. They stood in silence for a minute, each one weighing a decision in their minds.

"I…I say we go to the village." Lee finally said, much to the surprise of the others.

Guy stared at his student, not sure if he recognized him, "Lee?"

"I don't think we have much choice Guy-sensei," Lee explained. "I can feel the hunger starting to build up again, and I don't think we can ignore it forever. And besides…" Lee hesitated for a moment, his face becoming excited as he thought over what wanted to say. "I WANT to go to that village. I…I loved the taste of the man, the feeling of the flesh going down my throat, the warm blood on my tongue. I really want to eat those people."

"I'm with Lee," Neji added.

"My god…" Guy said as he got to his feet. "What have we become…?"

"Cut the crap Guy," Kakashi told him. "And let's just get moving."

Guy nodded and the zombie-nin took off with Kakashi leading the way, leaving the last vestiges of humanity they had behind.

"Hey Neji!" Lee exclaimed excitedly as they started to run, "How about we race to the village! If I don't beat you I'll do one-thousand one-armed push-ups!"

Neji shot Lee and annoyed glare. "Lee, I don'd dhing dhat will hab any affecd ad all."

"OK then!" Lee shouted, "2000 one-arm push-ups!"

Neji rolled his eyes; he was too hungry to deal with this.

* * *

Please leave a review. I love them so.

You remember how I said that this was going to be the last chapter?

Yeah, I lied.

I got BIG plans for this story, so expect more zombie goodness coming up, filled with more gore and violence than you can handle!

But first, I need to finish the next chapter for "A Few Seconds Difference."


	5. Down With the Sickness

Hello again. No, I'm not dead. I've just haven't had the drive to continue these projects ever since I've started on my own original projects that I'll talk about later. Anyway, I'm going to try and finnish these now that school is almost over.

Thanks to all my reviewers for pushing me forward, edwardelric16, BIG BOY LLOYD, Aisuma, narutodippy, doryishness, CandyGirl999, AJW1893, Dr.Doom23, kaiju3, t-fly (you especially), Chromde, EvilFaeirie17, killroy777, I have no name, LordFrieza, and Big Daddy Cool.

* * *

The sun was setting against the green hillsides, disappearing behind the treetops and igniting the sky in a beautiful mixture of red and orange. At the edge of the forest the trees cast long, dark shadows against an open field, contrasting with the yellowish tint the ground had taken from the sun.

Unfortunately for the two men walking across the field, they had no time to take in the beauty around them as they were preoccupied looking for a pair of teenagers.

"I swear, when I get my hands on that boy…" one of them grumbled, keeping a sharp eye towards the woods.

His friend chuckled, "Oh lay off him a bit. They're young and in love, course they're going to run off a few times. Remember when you where that age?"

"Bah."

The man sighed at his friend's lack of romantic thoughts, "I don't see how you ever got married. Come on then, we'll check by the river once more before heading back to the village."

Without any argument the two set off for the river, hoping to find those two before it got dark.

* * *

Little did the two know that had they simply taken the time to search the woods they would have discovered exactly what had become of their children.

"How many?"

Perched on a high tree branch, Neji sat watching the two peasants making their way across the field. Their chakra signatures, though no where near shinobi level, where like glowing beacons standing out in the darkness. Never in all his life could Neji remember seeing something so beautiful, so tempting. He felt the hunger rising within him…

"Neji!"

Kakashi's stern voice broke him out of his daze. "Only dwo," he answered, "I imagine dhey'll bring bacg more dhough when dhey don'd find anydhing."

Kakashi nodded, turning back to their "campsite," a small opening surrounded by thick trees. The remains of the two lovers lay strewn about in a bloody mess. Bit's and pieces of the girl, no older than sixteen, covered the forest floor staining the dirt crimson and filling the air with the sickening smell of meat left out in the sun.

Might Gai sat in the middle of the gore, the boy leaning against his chest as bit into his neck. Blood flowed out in streams as he tore out huge chunks of flesh, causing the boys body to spasm uncontrollably. Against all odds, the boy was still alive. His tears mixed with the blood running down his face as he stared at the body of his love, desecrated beyond recognition. Rock Lee was kneeling over her, gnawing on the remaining flesh of her once beautiful face, her one remaining eye staring at him lifelessly.

"Yo Gai," Kakashi called out, already having eaten his fill, "finish him off already. You wait to long he's going to come back, and you know what a pain that will be."

Without another word of motivation Gai lifted his fist and slammed it down on the boys head. A sickening crunch filled the air as it came down, shattering the boy's skull and causing bone fragments to rip their way past his skin and hair. The boy's eyes rolled into the back of his head and his body gave one last jerk before all life faded from him, and after a few more tries Gai finally managed to crack open a large enough hole for him to rip out the brains which he eagerly stuffed into his mouth.

While this was happening Kakashi made his way towards a slowly moving lump on the ground. As he watched the severed head of Kabuto was trying desperately to maneuver his way over to a lump of meat they had left out specifically for him. He was only a few inches away at by this point, which prompted a spattering of curses from him as Kakashi lifted him up by his pony-tail.

"Are you ready to talk?" The copy-nin asked.

Kabuto's eyes looked at him desperately though his broken glasses, "Yes, yes, God yes! I'll tell you anything!"

Kakashi held up a fistful of meat, giving it a tender squeeze so that the blood ran down his arm. "I imagine you'll want this before it goes bad," he said as Kabuto stuck his tongue out in an attempt to catch one of the droplets. "So tell me, where did this start?"

"Orochimaru," Kabuto said without hesitation. "He created this virus somehow. His plan was to infect ninja from Konoha, who afterwards he expected to return home to spread the infection." A smirk grew on Kabuto's face despite his overwhelming hunger, a remnant of his own odd personality. "It appears he underestimated your intelligence."

Kakashi gave the piece of meat another squeeze, "Flattery will get you nowhere."

Kabuto dropped his smile, turning his attention back to the object of his desire. "I told you what you wanted to know, now give it to me!"

"Not yet," said Kakashi, "What about…" His words trailed off momentarily, knowing the answer before it even left his lips. "What about a cure?"

Kabuto scoffed, "Look around you, do you honestly think anything could cure this?"

Kakashi didn't bother to respond, accepting it as the truth. It was odd though. He knew that if by some miracle he could be cured of this infection and return to the way things where he would have never been able to live with what he had done. Whatever force was driving him on, the hunger or some depraved will to survive it was stronger than the honor and morals he had held so highly in life.

That terrified him.

Satisfied Kakashi lifted the piece of meat to Kabuto's mouth, almost losing a finger to the hungry set of jaws. The copy-nin watched in disgust as Kabuto greedily chewed on the raw meat, the remains of which slid out his throat hole and plopped on the ground.

Sighing he let Kabuto drop to the ground and turned back to face his teammates who were still feasting. Neji had abandoned his post to fight with Lee over one of the boys legs, and Kakashi had to give him a kick in the head to break them apart.

"Knock it off," he chastised. "Your ninja, act like it."

His discipline the only thing holding him back, Neji gave Kakashi an apologetic bow. "My abologies Gagashi-san, bud I was sdarding do ged hungry again."

"We've all had plenty to eat already." Kakashi said with a glare, "You can hold out for a little while longer."

Neji didn't argue. "So whad's ned? Do we addack dhad village as blanned?"

Kakashi considered it, and had he not had several pounds of girl meat resting in his stomach he would have probably consented, but as of now his instincts of a ninja where stronger than his hunger.

"No, Naruto and the rest will in all likelihood have returned to Konoha by now. We can't risk leaving to obvious a trail for them to follow us."

"So what then? Do we have some sort of destination?"

Kakashi nodded. "Yes, we're going to pay a visit to Orochimaru." He pointed a finger at Kabuto's head, making sure his intentions were clear, "And you're going to lead us to him.

"Whatever," the head said unenthusiastically.

* * *

Tsunade felt her fists clench underneath the table. Slowly, she let out a breath that she hadn't realized she had been holding and placed her hands back on her desk, locking her fingers and putting up the demeanor of one who was in complete control.

"Alright," she spoke calmly, "Tell me again what happened."

"It's exactly what we told you!" An angry Naruto shouted at her, jumping from his seat in his frustration. The two ANBU guards posted in the room shifted slightly at his outburst, but made no move to restrain him after a gesture from the Hokage.

"I know that," the Hokage said with a firm voice, "but I want to hear it again, and this time without any outbursts."

That wasn't good enough for Naruto. "But Tsunade…!"

"Naruto!"

Naruto grimaced, knowing that he needed to calm down but not liking it, sat back in his chair next to Sakura who had her eyes cast down at the floor. Across from them Sai stood leaning against the wall, his face as impassive as ever.

Satisfied, Tsunade began "Now, Sai arrived some time before you did and gave us a rundown of what had happened in the village." She glanced between the two of them. "But I want to go over the fact again. Naruto, you said…"

"It's as they said," Sakura interrupted, looking up at her sensei. "The mission was a trap. It was simply a lure to try and infect us with a new virus, presumably created by Orochimaru."

Tsunade nodded, that was a good call based on the evidence they provided. "And this virus, you're telling me it turned people into…"

"Zombies," Sai finished.

Tsunade put her hand to her head, "You expect me to believe…"

'I personally preformed on one of them and Neji before he turned," Sakura testified, now in full medic mode. "Physically, their bodies were dead. All major organs and bodily functions had shut down and where showing signs of decay. The brain, nerves, and chakra system were the only remaining functional systems, although they did not respond to external stimuli such as pain."

Tsunade looked at Sakura, her eyes telling her everything she needed. Sakura had the eyes of someone who had seen people they cared about being torn from them, and something even more horrifying Tsunade couldn't place. Whatever happened out there, zombies or no, would scar her student for the rest of her life. She recognized those eyes.

"Alright then," Tsunade stood up and looked at her guards, a thousand thoughts going through her head.

"I want the council assembled within the next half-hour, and the head of every major family there."

"The Hyuuga are currently-"one of the ANBU began.

"I don't give a damn!" She shot back. "Make it happen, and I want messages for every team on a non-essential mission to return home ready to be sent on my order."

The ANBU nodded and disappeared in a flash of speed, leaving Tsunade alone with the three ninja.

Carefully Tsunade approached Naruto, who was shaking in his seat. She placed a calming hand on his shoulder though she knew it would be little consolation.

"They're really dead..." Naruto whispered.

"I know," the Hokage whispered back.

"Sensei?" Sakura asked, staring off into space.

"Yes Sakura?"

"How is Tenten doing?"

Tsunade glanced out the window, "She'll be fine. We have a specialist in the Hyuuga technique looking at her, so she should be healed in a day or two."

Tsunade gritted her teeth and turned away from her student. She knew it wouldn't be long before the Hyuuga where pounding at her door demanding why they needed one of their medics, and why Neji had not returned with his teammate. She wouldn't be able to keep this under wraps for long.

This was the biggest security breach in the history of Konoha. Four high-class ninja, two of them among the most skilled and respected in the village, were possible now working against them. Added to that, if all of what she had been told was true, they could have reinforcements added to their numbers in a relatively short amount of time.

"So what happens now?" Sai asked.

Tsunade wished she had the answer to that.

* * *

Reviews are appreciated!

* * *


	6. Plans of Snakes and Men

Finally I update with a new chapter! I may have taken awhile, but at least it's a long one.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who review the last chapter: The Great Rick, AJW1893, edwardelric16, Pyro Flare, I have no name, Dr.Doom23, t-fly(you should get an account here!) LordFrieza, EvilFaerie17, bethy-lil-shy-girl, , Trigga Happy Saiyanayo, Wolf Fangirl, diadem15, Candygirl999, ArmorOfGeddon (with the especially long comment) and anyone who posted anonymously! Thanks guys, sorry for keeping you waiting.

Also, I feel I should mention this as a spoiler alert. This story takes place between chapter 342 and 343 in the manga. A few facts may not line up perfectly but their not so huge as to make a big deal out of them.

But, even though the story starts off from that point any and all information regarding characters and world of Naruto revealed up until **chapter 422** (the most recent chapter as of now) is true for this story as well. So any characters that have appeared in that timeframe exist in this story, they just might not appear. Also, anything revealed about a character's origins or past in that timeframe is also true in this story.

That's all for now!

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It had been approximately nine hours since Team Seven Team Gai had returned from their disastrous mission minus several members. In that time frame Konoha's ninja population had become abuzz with activity; the rumors that a only a single member of Team Gai had returned, with substantial injuries from the Gentle Fist Style no less, only added fuel to the fire as talk of the unexplained events spread from person to person. Most gave the topic little thought; after all, this was Kakashi and Gai they were talking about. What on earth could possible be so dangerous as to take them both out?

Unfortunate for Tsunade she was faced with the grim reality of the situation. Of course she had been skeptical of the entire thing. Zombies? Those were the subject of badly-told campfire stories, not Konoha's intelligence reports. Even so she still sent out an ANBU medical team along with the other two squads sent to do reconnaissance on the village in question. The squad consisted of medic-nin specially trained to deal with biological warfare and outbreaks of disease. If there was any truth to Sakura's and Naruto's story they would find it.

Unfortunately, Naruto was well known for being honest to a fualt.

So it was no surprise to her when the an ANBU agent appeared in her office in the middle of the night, his breathing heavy from having ran non-stop for several hours to return crucial information to his village.

Tsunade carefully held the contents of the folder he had given her, its contents kept safe under a special seal only she could have opened, almost wishing she had never sent that team out. "So these are…?"

The ANBU nodded, "As instructed our squad investigated the matter of Team Seven's last mission. As they had already reported the village has been attacked by a large force that apparently killed off the majority of the population in the first wave then broke into the homes of the survivors and dragged them out into the streets to be killed. Every victim had apparently been…eaten."

Tsunade flipped through the photographs provided in the mission report. The scenes were reminiscent of the last Great Shinobi War: bodies left to rot in the heat of the sun, destroyed homes crumbling in the background, families caught in crossfire of a battle they didn't see coming. But there was a greater level of barbarism in these pictures unlike that of ninja; there was a crudeness, a desperation in the level of carnage that Tsunade could not remember seeing in any of her past battles. "Were there no survivors?"

The ANBU shook his head. "We were unable to find anyone who had survived the attack on the village, however…"

Reaching down he skimmed through the photographs on her desk, pulling out several pictures of middle age man covered in blood being secured by several ANBU agents. "We did find the man that Team Seven had subdued upon entering the village. He appears to be a civilian that had been infected by the same condition his attackers carried. The chief medical officer left a detailed initial assessment with the information I was given."

Tsunade flipped through the various documents and found the report in question. She flipped through the pages of handwritten notes not missing the nervous excitement in the doctor's handwriting. This was something no one had ever seen before. "And what of the four ninja in question?"

The raccoon-masked ANBU paused for a moment. In all likelihood he had served under or with Kakashi and Gai in the past and like many others carried a large amount of respect for the two high-level Jonin. However, like a true professional he pushed aside personal feelings and focused on the job at hand. "Unfortunately, we were unable to locate the bodies of Might Gai, Kakashi Hatake, Neji Hyuga, or Rock Lee. We did find signs of several skirmishes in two separate areas around the village as well as the unidentified bodies of an adult male and several dogs, though whether or not these incidents are related in unknown at this time."

"_So that means we could be dealing with all four of them being infected."_ Tsunade felt something sink in her gut. This situation was growing more and more dire by the second. "And what of the infected individual? Has he been secured?"

The ANBU nodded. "He is being safely transported to the highest level quarantine facility outside of Konoha where he will undergo a full examination. Every possible precaution is being taken as per your instruction. "

Tsunade let out an internal sigh of relief. At least they were going to get a first hand look at what they were dealing with. "I trust this information is being kept on a strict need-to-know basis."

"Yes, Hokage-Sama."

"Very well," Tsunade told him. "You are dismissed."

The ANBU nodded and with a flash of smoke he was gone, leaving not a single trace left as was expected of him.

Flipping open the medical examination of the subject Tsunade grabbed a half-empty cup of sake and finished it in one gulp. She had a feeling she was going to need it.

Opening the report she started reading over the hastily-written notes, seeing words like "impossible" and "further examination required" appearing again and again.

_The Subject (referred hereafter as "Patient Zero") was found secured in the bedroom of the former_ _Russo Village, as per Team Seven's mission report (See Document 2)._

_Patient appeared disorientated and hostile upon sight of us and immediately attempted to break from its well-secured restraints, worsening the broken bone in his right arm. (Patient shows no signs of pain from injury or concern for his one well being. Wound __did not bleed_ _despite open fracture. Bone continued to tear into patents skin as he struggled leaving the skin and muscles several damaged._

This could not be real. Such a thing could not exist in this world, it defied all natural laws.

_Initial examination showed __no physical signs of life__ coming from Patient Zero save for chakra systems. The heart, lungs, and other major organs were all __non-functional__ as described by Medic Sakura __Haruno in her write-up (See Document 3)._

_Patient Zero did not respond to tranquilizers, both injected and jutsu-based. All attempts to calm down Patient proved futile. In the end Several ANBU were forced to restrain Patient and apply a strait jacket and muzzle._

She was a doctor. She knew how the body worked. It did not work this way. Could not work this way.

_Attempts to draw blood proved __useless__, syringes only coming back with minute traces of an unidentified black substance that seems to be a natural product of Patients Zero's decay. Initial speculation leads me to assume this may help in keeping those infected limber…_

She closed the file.

Grabbing the body of sake on her desk she stood from her chair and walked to the open window and gazed at the night sky, watching the full moon hang overhead. Below her the village continued with its routine. Tiered civilians walked through the streets on their way home from work while off-duty ninja made their way to the local bars for a night of drinking. Children ran through the legs of people as they played ninja with each other and were yelled at by vendors for bothering their costumers.

Tsunade loved these people. The cared for each and every one of them and would die before she allowed anything to jeopardize the safety of her village. But if a single infected managed to get behind these walls…

The sake bottle shattered in Tsunade's grip spilling its contents to the floor and sending broken pieces of glass to pile dangerously on the floor. She gripped the broken shards in her hand tightly, ignoring the pain as they tore into her skin and drew blood. In all honesty she almost welcomed it, anything to distract her mind from the images of that horrifying scenario.

God help her, she had never been so afraid for her people in her entire life.

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"Ungh…"

Deep within the bowels of one of Orochimaru's many lairs the snake sannin lay in his bed, his arms lying uselessly at his sides. Beads of sweat slowly trickled down his brow as he felt his medication trying to combat the breakdown of his body, a side effect from his years of self-experimentation in his quest for immortality.

The darkness of his room was broken only by a small red light that flashed on the adjacent wall, a warning light indicating the unauthorized opening of one of the prison cells. The red filled the room at regular intervals, casting odd shadows along the crumbling walls.

Struggling, the snake sannin sat upright in his bed. His already-decaying arms felt like lead.

"Sasuke!" he called out.

Orochimaru gritted his teeth as a twitch of pain shot through his arms, remnants of his battle with the Hokage. They only managed to exacerbate the problems with the rest of his body, which required more and more medical attention every month. At this rate he would need to perform the soul transfer ritual sooner than expected.

"Sasuke!" he called again.

Orochimaru scowled in annoyance at the red lights incessant blinking. It was of no real concern to him, as any prisoner that escaped would have to make it though his ingenious security system and even then they could always be hunted down.

"SASUKE!" he called out a third time, his voice growing raspy.

Slowly his bedroom door creaked open, and in the on-again off-again red light Orochimaru saw the sweat-stained Uchiha looking back at him.

"You called?" Sasuke asked.

"Ku ku ku…" Orochimaru laughed, his tongue trailing out of his mouth to lick his lips. "Training on your own again? You'll wear your body out at this rate. Can't have that, can we Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke didn't respond.

"Humph," Orochimaru turned back to the light on his wall, which was really starting to aggravate him. "There's a prisoner escaping in cell block five. Look into it."

Nodding silently and with no enthusiasm, Sasuke turned to leave

"And Sasuke…" Orochimaru called after him, "make sure this one doesn't 'accidentally' escape under your watch, hmm?"

Sasuke turned to look back at him.

"I'd hate to have to hunt this one down and kill him, like I did with the last one." The snake sannin said, giving Sasuke a grin that was all teeth.

In the darkness Sasuke remained silent, his Sharingan eye almost invisible in the red light.

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Sasuke walked the dark hallways, needing little light to travel the underground labyrinth. Florescent lights flickered on and off as he made his way deeper into the complex towards the holding chambers, passing by various labs and rooms housing different "experiments."

Soon enough Sasuke found himself in front of a large steel door marked "Cell Block 5." The reinforced metal would have posed a challenge for high-ranking shinobi and would have proved impossible for the chakra-drained inhabitants of the prison. Whoever had managed to escape would have been better off staying in his cell and keeping to himself.

The small viewing window in the center of the door provided Sasuke with a view into the dark room. Normally the lights where kept off in this area to further drain the prisoners of their willpower and save on electricity, but in this case it only hampered him in his objective. Squinting Sasuke could barely make out some movement in the darkness, and he wasn't about to waste his Sharingan on one of Orochimaru's pathetic subjects.

Steeling himself he punched in the number code into the keypad on the wall and waited as the internal mechanisms unlocked themselves. With an affirmative "beep!" the door slid open and Sasuke stepped into the darkness.

The first thing that caught his attention was the sound of chewing that filled the room, reminiscent of the time he had been invited to an all-you-could-eat buffet with Chouji's family. The sound seemed to fill the entire room, mixing with tearing and ripping and grunts of satisfaction. Something was very, very, wrong.

Feeling along the cold stone wall Sasuke found the light switch and flipped it on.

There was blood _everywhere._

Everywhere in his vision Sasuke saw the mangled bodies of the prisoners strewn over the floor, their blood and bile smeared across the walls like a twisted finger-painting. Every cell door had been forced open from the outside, many of the iron bars ripped right off their hinges and thrown aside. Sasuke could make out the bloody handprints on the walls where men had been dragged kicking and screaming from their cells. The fact that only one of the alarms had been tripped was not lost on Sasuke. The only explanation was that their entire security system had been compromised somehow.

Those not dead were feasting on those that were, tearing apart their cellmate's bodies with their bare hands and stuffing the bloody parts into their mouths. The entire room was an orgy of blood and gore as they ripped into their victims, tearing, feasting…

But the one thing that stood out the most of all, out of all the carnage and terror, was a single patch of blood-speckled silver standing in the middle of it all.

"Kakashi-sensei?"

The copy-nin slowly turned his head in Sasuke's direction and Sasuke felt his stomach churn.

His former teacher's face was drenched with red, blood dripping from his jaw. In his hands was a severed arm.

"Sasuke?"

A round head looked up from the ripped-open carcass of one of the prisoners, immediately breaking into a large smile when it saw him. "Hey, Sasuke is here!"

"Lee?" Sasuke thought he was going to throw up.

"Hey Neji look, it's Sasuke!" Lee called out to the Hyuuga, currently feasting on a pile of guts. "HI SUSUKE!"

As Lee waved his one arm enthusiastically, Sasuke could only watch in mute horror as his friend's intestines rocked back and forth from his exposed stomach.

One by one the figures looked up from their meal and Sasuke found a collection of grey eyes and blood-stained mouths staring at him. As the feeding ceased the entire room fell into deafening silence.

Neji looked up from his meal. "Don' dust 'tand dere you idiots!" he shouted. "Do dometing!

Sasuke suddenly snapped back to reality as the prisoners all got to their feat and lurched forward, arms out and jaws open wide for him. He didn't even try to put up a fight, his only thought to get as far away from this scene as possible.

"I got this," Kakashi told the others. With a single movement he picked Kabuto's head off the floor by the ponytail and threw him as hard as he could aiming for Sasuke's neck.

The sound of Kabuto's yell reached him before his jaws did, and Sasuke turned to the side just in time to see the severed head fly past his face. Matted grey hair brushed against his cheek.

The head flew past the door and strait into the adjacent wall before tumbling to the floor and rolling down the hall. Sasuke ignored it for now and slammed his fist on the red button just above the keypad, issuing the lockdown command for the entire cell block.

Behind him Sasuke heard the door sliding back into place just as the prisoners reached it, their bodies smashing into the reinforced steel as it closed them off. Sasuke backed up against the wall, breathing heavily as he watched the shadows moving outside the viewing panel and banging their fists against the door.

His hand moved to cover his mouth to hold back the vomit. This had to be a genjutsu, it had to be. This was just another of Orochimaru's tests, something to train him…it had to be.

The noises from the other side suddenly died down and Sasuke's entire body tensed, his sharingan activated and ready.

On the other side of the window the face of Kakashi suddenly came into view. There was no mistaking that half-lidded eye, that silver hair, the way he wore his hitai-ate. But it was wrong. His skin was too pale, even paler than Orochimaru's, and his eye…his eye was dead.

Kakashi waved through the glass, "Yo."

It occurred to Sasuke at that moment that Kakashi's face was uncovered for the first time ever. He hadn't noticed because of all the blood covering his former teacher's mouth acted like a second mask.

Seeming to pick up on this Kakashi pulled his mask back up, the blood immediately soaking through the fabric. "I know what this looks like Sasuke, but I need you to keep a level head about this."

Sasuke said nothing, all his efforts going into breaking the genjutsu.

"We have business with Orochimaru," Kakashi pressed his hand against the door, smearing blood on the glass. "I need you to open the door and let us through."

Sasuke felt something running down his cheek. It must have been blood.

"I promise we won't hurt you. We could use someone like you."

Silently, Sasuke turned away from the door and slowly started down the dark hallway. Behind him the fists resumed their banging.

"We'll get through this door eventually Sasuke," Kakashi called out to him. "It's only a matter of time."

Sasuke didn't look back. He kept his slow pace into the darkness, all the while Kabuto watching him with that shit-eating grin on his face.

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Kakashi bashed his fist against the steel doors in frustration. In their hunger they had overlooked the necessity of posting guards. This cut their time short.

"We need to get this door open now!" Kakashi ordered the others. To his dismay many of them and already lost interest in getting the door open, instead returning to their unfinished meals. "Unless you want Orochimaru to escape…"

"Fuck that man!" One of Orochimaru's infected prisoners shouted back. "I'm not getting myself killed going after Orochimaru. As soon as I'm done here I'm getting the hell out of-"

It took Kakashi only a split second to appear behind the man and grasp his head with both hands.

"Wha-"

A sharp CRACK filled the air as Kakashi snapped the man's neck in one clean movement. His comrades watched in horror as their fellow prisoner fell to the ground like a rag doll; his head twisted almost 180 degrees.

Kakashi glared at the others. "Anyone else?" he asked with no reservations.

Much to everyone's shock the only voice to speak up belonged to the man lying on the ground.

He looked up at Kakashi from the ground, his face frozen in fear and confusion while the rest of his body lay limp. "What did you…I…I can't move."

Kakashi lifted his foot onto the man's stomach, leaning over him and staring him in the eye. "I snapped your neck. Had you listened to me in the beginning we could have avoided this."

Had his biological functions not have ceased several minutes ago tears would have been welling up in his eyes, "That…that's impossible. I…I can't feel anything. I should be dead…"

"That's right, you can't feel anything." Kakashi looked up at the others, "None of you can."

The newly turned zombies looked at each other, their eyes widening in realization as if they had just come out of a dream and into a nightmare.

"None of you can feel anything. You can't feel pain, you can't feel fatigue, and most importantly, you can't die."

"Ad far ad we can dell, edyway." Neji added.

Kakashi nodded, "The only thing you can feel now is hunger, something you all have already experienced firsthand."

"What are you guys?" One of the others asked.

Kakashi remained silent for a moment. "We're ninja," he answered, "our priorities are just a little different than most."

The other prisoners stepped back in fear, no one daring to speak up.

His point made, Kakashi turned to Neji. "Alright, we need to get that door open. Can you make out any weak points in the design?

Neji's eyes widened in a sudden burst of chakra as he activated his Byakugan, the skin around them rippling as chakra forced its way past torn muscle and broken vessels. One could almost hear the broken skull fragments scrapping against each other as Neji surveyed the door.

"In's build solid," he confirmed, "bud I tink enogh force could brind id down."

One of the other prisoners nodded in agreement, the former scuffle already forgotten. "That's sounds about right. Orochimaru was never really concerned with us escaping to invest in really heavy doors. With a chakra suppressant system in place there was never much need for it."

The gears in Kakashi's mind started turning, going over his options. He looked back at the prisoner that had spoken up. "Is there anyone here with a curse seal? Those guys always seemed to have a lot of power in them."

The prisoner rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Well, there was one but…" He gestured over to the fallen body of one of the less fortunate prisoners, one lying in a puddle of his own blood. "I don't think he's getting up again."

Kakashi cursed to himself, growing more and more agitated with the situation. The hunger was starting to prick at the back of his mind too, but he forced it back down. He needed to focus, he needed action…

Gai immediately stood tall and flexed his muscles, sporting a big grin on his face. "Allow me my eternal rival! That door can't possible stand up against the Inevitability of Death!"

Everyone stopped to stare at the spandex wearing man. Somewhere, a cricket chirped.

"Well…"Gai explained sheepishly, "I can't exactly go around spreading the 'Springtime of Youth,' can I?"

If his tear-ducts hadn't already dried up, Lee's cheeks would have been drenched. "Gai-sensei!"

Gai felt his own eyes filling with non-existent tears. "Lee!"

The two jumped into each others arms and joined in a manly hug, much to the embarrassment of everyone evolved.

"Just take the bloody door down," Kakashi ordered. _"And where the hell is that cricket? I'm hungry."_

Gai gave Lee a thumbs up and flipped into the air, landing in front of the door and striking a dynamic pose. Lee's was a little lopsided as he was still getting used to having only one arm.

"Alright Lee, if I can't take this door down I'll do one-thousand sit-ups!"

Lee felt his pride swell, "Gai-sensei!"

"JUST DO IT!" the other zombies shouted.

Taking a deep breath (not that it helped), Gai took his stance and felt the chakra surging throughout his body. "Eight Gates Opening, Sixth, Pain Gate, OPEN!"

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In the deeper recesses of Konoha Tsunade marched down the hallway towards the grand council chambers. A pair ANBU flanked her as she made her way down the pristine white hallway, each one ready to act on her commands. Security cameras watched her every move as she walked past, nothing escaping their attention in the enclosed space. In all of Konoha this was one of the most high-security areas in the entire village. Every facet of its construction was designed to keep information from getting out.

A bear–masked ANBU stood waiting for her at the end of the hallway, standing at the ready in front of a pair of large wooden doors that led to Konoha's "war room."

"Hokage-sama," he said, kneeling in respect. "All are present and accounted for."

Tsunade nodded, expecting no less from her men. "And the seals?" she questioned.

"They have all been tested and activated," he replied. "No one outside of this room will be able to listen in or watch the proceedings."

That being the first good news she had heard all day, Tsunade took a deep breath before issuing the command. "Very well, let us begin."

Wordlessly the ANBU got to his feet and opened the heavy doors. The old wood creaked against the hinges.

For the past hour the elders and leaders of Konoha had been assembled in the Council Chambers underneath the Hokage Mansion, many of them tired and grumpy from being kept up at such a late hour or from being dragged away from important clan affairs.

Koharu Utatane and Homura Mitokado were both present as representatives of Konoha's Council of elders. Neither of them looked terrible pleased at their impromptu summoning, though Tsunade couldn't recall anything she had ever done to please the two of them

Every clan head was present, the Hyuga, Inuzuka, Aburame, Akimichi, Nara, many of them having heard the rumors regarding Team Sevens disastrous mission and looking reasonably concerned. None of these people were fools; they knew something big was up. Out of everyone it was Hiashi who looked the most concerned with the reasoning behind this meeting. Neji's fate had still not been revealed to him and although it pained Tsunade to keep it from him the laws regarding missing-nin were clear: such facts had to be made public to the council before informing the family to ensure they did nothing…foolish.

As she entered the room everyone seated at the round table stood at attention and bowed to her in respect. She nodded back as she walked towards her own seat, head held high and radiating an aura of authority.

She took her seat. "Be seated," she told the group. "I'm sure you're all wondering why you're here."

Tsunade suddenly felt the full weight of her title on her shoulders as she watched the faces of the council studying her, waiting for her to continue. She took a deep breath, this would not be easy.

"I have recently been informed;" she began, "that the Jounin Kakashi Hatake as well as the Chunin Neji Hyuga have betrayed Konoha and are on the run as missing-nin."

The eyes of every man and woman shot open in surprise. If Tsunade had told them she was pregnant with Naruto's baby she doubted they would have been more surprised.

"What lunacy is this?!" Hiashi shouted, pounding his fist on the table in an unusual display of emotion for the strict Hyuga. "I refuse to believe such an obvious pack of lies!"

Tsunade controlled herself, letting Hiashi get it out of his system. "I know this is hard to accept Hiashi, but there is more to the circumstances revolving around..."

"You expect me to believe that my nephew would betray his village?" The Hyuuga elder practically screamed at her. "Where did this information come from?"

Tsunade waited for Hiashi to calm down before continuing "From Naruto Uzumaki and Sakura Haruno," she told him without wavering, "both of who witnessed the actions of both ninja directly. It was backed up by Neji's teammate Tenten, who is currently being treated by your medics from wounds sustained from the Gentle Fist style."

Hiashi refused to back down however, "This is…!"

"Calm yourself Hiashi," Shibi Aburame spoke up. "We will learn nothing if you continue to let anger cloud your judgment."

Hiashi scowled at the Aburame Clan leader but clamed himself when he realized all eyes were upon him. Folding his hands into his sleeves he sat back in his chair, scowl still on his face.

"But with all due respect Hokage-sama," Shibi continued, "I must confess I too am skeptical in hearing this information. I personally served with Kakashi and Gai on many occasions and find the idea of them betraying us improbable at best."

Tsunade steeled herself, realizing that the course of this meeting hinged on the next words she spoke. "There are….extenuating circumstances."

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In his sleeping quarters Orochimaru sat up in his bed. The alarm had been switched off moments ago but he had turned on the light on his bed stand casting the room in a dim yellow glow. With his arms acting up he would get no more sleep tonight.

A series of hacking coughs forced their way out of his throat, spraying the bed sheet with several drops of blood. Orochimaru knew his clock was ticking; soon no amount of medical treatments would help. In the face of it all, he smiled. These matters were of no consequence to a genius such as himself.

He felt the surge of chakra before he actually saw it, the flash of blue lightning coming through his door in a perfectly strait line aimed for his heart. Orochimaru acted completely on instinct, ignoring the pain and bringing his arms up to take the full force of the attack. The weapon sliced through both his arms cleanly and impaled the wall behind him, missing his shoulder by a few inches.

"_This chakra…!"_

In the blink of an eye the doorway was cut to pieces and crumbled to the ground in a broken heap. From the darkness Sasuke stepped through the doorway, the chidori blade emanating from his left hand and his sword held firmly in his right. The Uchiha's sharingan eyes were ablaze in anger, their fury turned on the creature in front of them.

Sasuke increased his chidori the moment his eyes fell on his master. "What did you do?" he asked, his words laced with venom.

Even in the extreme pain he was in the sannin couldn't help but laugh. "Ku ku ku, you'll have to be more specific than that Sasuke…"

In a flash Sasuke was standing on the bed, his normally stoic face contorted in rage. With a quick jerk he brought his chidori blade up, slicing through his master's forearms and sending a spray of blood onto the wall and ceiling. Orochimaru screamed.

With his arms lying at his side, the forearms only attached by an inch of so of flesh and bone and bleeding into the dark sheets, the legendary sannin could scarcely do anything as his pupil raised cold steel to his throat. "What did you do toKakashi?"

If it were even possible Orochimaru's skin seemed to become a shade whiter. "They're here?" he whispered, his tone betraying his nervousness.

Sasuke felt his chakra raging inside his sharingan. "You monster…what have you done?"

An explosion from the lower chambers shook the entire complex, sending dirt and furniture crumbling around the room. The sannin eyes suddenly became very excited, a look Sasuke remembered seeing the last time his experiments had been successful.

The snake tongue slid out of his mouth, eagerly licking around his lips. "It worked then….everything is going to plan…"

"WHAT DID YOU DO?" Sasuke shouted as he pressed the blade harder to the sannin's throat, tasting the blood of his master for the first time.

Orochimaru's eyes suddenly darted back to Sasuke, as if he had just remembered he was there. "Just a little something I've been working on. I thought it would be rude of me not to share."

"I'll kill you…" Sasuke said through gritted teeth, "I'll cut your fucking throat…"

"Ku ku ku…and destroy their one chance for a cure? You know as well as I do that you don't have the power to kill me."

Sasuke felt a tremor run through his body at those words, his raw fury threatening to spill out and finally consume him. The Uchiha gripped his sword tighter….

"Put the blade down Sasuke-kun…"

It took everything he had, but Sasuke pulled his sword back.

"Ku ku ku…that's a good boy," Orochimaru smiled as Sasuke got off the bed, sheathing his sword on his back. Below them several more explosions were set off, indicating their guests had broken into the other labs and most likely feeding on his subjects.

"We'll need to escape now Sasuke, do you understand?" The sannin said, "If we stay here they will find us and tear us to pieces. We can't have that, can we?"

Sasuke said nothing.

The grin on Orochimaru's face grew wider as he swung his body around, gritting his teeth as he forced life back into his legs and practically through himself off the bed. "Help me, Sasuke."

His pupil made no move to help, not even bringing himself to look at him.

Orochimaru scowled, "Fine then." With a grunt of pain he started moving foreword, his arms hanging uselessly at his sides and dripping a trail of blood in his path. The sannin slowly made his way towards the far wall, leaning his body against the hard stone construction.

"Lift my arm Sasuke."

The Uchiha glared at him.

"Do you want to stay here and die Sasuke-kun?" Orochimaru said with a sick grin, "Did you not say you cannot die until you kill your brother?"

The sharingan turned itself on Orochimaru, sending a chill down the sannin's spine. Never taking his eyes of him Sasuke relented to his task, grabbing Orochimaru's arm and digging his fingers into the wound he created.

"Ooh, not so rough Sasuke," Orochimaru smiled. His apprentice stayed silent as he pressed the sannin's hand against the wall, letting Orochimaru feed his own twisted chakra into the stone fixture and release the hidden passage on the other side.

With a groan akin to a dying man the stone slowly moved away, revealing a dark corridor leading on for miles. The snake sannin smiled, in a few minutes his zombie-nin will arrive and find nothing. Eventually they will have no option but to return to Konoha and he would be there to witness it all.

But as he tried to step forward Orochimaru felt the hold on his arm grow tighter, the fingers digging deeper into his wound and drawing up even more blood to the surface. He turned to Sasuke, "What are you doing?"

Sasuke was staring at him intently, his fury gone, leaving nothing but a cold, emotionless mask on the surface. "Your existence disgusts me."

"And what of that?" Orochimaru sneered, "You need me Sasuke. You need me if you ever want a chance of defeating-"

"No I don't," Sasuke cut him off, "not anymore."

Orochimaru face contorted in rage, "You call yourself my apprentice?"

Sasuke reached for his blade, "I'm an avenger."

The blade easily slid through Orochimaru's almost non-existent heart, giving Sasuke one fleeting moment of victory. It was short lived as Orochimaru unhinged his jaw and opened his mouth unnaturally wide to unleash one last horror upon the world.

It moved so fast and so silently that Sasuke almost missed it as Orochimaru's true form shot out from his mouth, shedding the skin of his temporary vessel and taking form behind Sasuke. The used husk hung limp on Sasuke's sword; its purpose fulfilled. Letting it fall to the floor Sasuke turned to face Orochimaru.

"Hm, so that's your true form."

Before him stood the product of a thousand self-experiments. It was huge, filling over half the room with its massive, snake-like body. It was several feet in girth and its length seemed to stretch on forever slinking around walls and under furniture. Bone-white scales covered its entire body from its tail and merging with the head, proving upon closer inspection to actually be hundreds upon hundreds of individual serpents slowly slithering in a disgusting orgy of hate.

The creature reared its ugly head above Sasuke and stared at him with its glistening yellow eyes and let out a terrifying hiss.

Sasuke regarded it impassively, "You're pathetic."

The creature seemed to smile at this, revealing a mouth filled with poison-tipped fangs. Both fighters stared each other down waiting for the other to make his move, each of them knowing that only one of them would be walking away from this.

Then the wall exploded.

The right side of the room burst into pieces as Might Gai plowed through the wall with the force of a hundred bulldozers. Sasuke was caught completely by surprise by the attack just barley dodging the shower of rocks that were thrown across the room. Orochimaru didn't have time to react because he was to busy getting his face crushed under Gai's foot.

It was perhaps THE most dynamic entry of all time.

The eyes of hundreds of snakes fell upon Gai as Orochimaru fell under the force of the attack, immediately sending out a wave of serpents to strike down the attacker. The tendrils whipped out to hit only air as Gai disappeared in a flash of speed to reappear in front of Orochimaru and deliver a nasty uppercut to his snout.

Orochimaru's head shot back at breakneck speed slamming strait into the stone wall. The force of the impact almost toppled the structure on top of them and shook Sasuke out of his trance.

The giant snake hit the ground hard and Gai was on him faster than Choji in an all-you can eat buffet, driving his fist into the mass of snakes and grasping a handful of the squirming reptiles. Orochimaru let out an angry hiss as he felt Gai rip them out of his body and cracked his body like a whip sending Gai flying across the room right past Sasuke and plowing into a bookshelf causing them both to collapse into a heap.

Both Sasuke and Orochimaru watched Gai's body as it lay silently underneath the pile of books. Sasuke couldn't help but notice the large amounts of blood that covered the Green Beast's arms and chest, there formation leaving a distinct impression that it was not his own.

One of the books shifted just slightly giving the two only a seconds warning before Gai was up again, shooting across the floor at impossible speeds on chakra-infused legs and plowing right into the sannin plowing both of them into the wall again before he unleashed a tidal wave of furious punches so powerful that Sasuke could have sworn flames were leaping from his fists.

The one thing that shocked Sasuke the most was the look of raw fury that burned on Gai's face. It was unlike anything he had seen before and left him with a sense that the Gai he had known was no more, leaving some horrible creature in his place that had only one desire: to kill.

As the two titans grappled with each other Sasuke became aware of the presence of several others joining them. Looking over his shoulder Sasuke saw the hungry faces of dozens of newly-infected prisoners running trough the trail of destruction Gai had left as he had plowed on his way towards this room. The hoard streamed in through the broken down wall, each one trying to be first to get their hands on the fresh meat before their eyes.

"Hey Sasuke," one of the zombies said with a grin, "Thought we'd pay you a visit."

The zombies slowly began to circle the Uchiha, enough rationale left in their minds to know they couldn't just charge in head first. Sasuke watched them all impassively, his mind working out the most efficient way to take all of them out.

"I don't know about this guys," one of the zombies said. "This is Sasuke we're talking about. He took out, like, a hundred guys without breaking a sweat once!"

"That's nothing, he only knocked them out." The biggest one smirked, his head a little lopsided by the huge chunk missing from his neck. "Besides, we can't get knocked out anymore, remember?"

The large one charged Sasuke with killing intent, his jaw open wide in anticipation of his meal. "We're fucking invincible now! Just dig in boys!"

The zombie ran strait were Sasuke had been standing only to seemingly run though his as Sasuke made his move. The zombie came to a stop a few feet behind him, stopped, them collapsed as his head fell off his shoulders.

"SASUKE!" Orochimaru hissed as he through Gai once more into the wall, "Use my curse seal!"

Sasuke didn't bother to look back only activating his sharingan eye as the rest of the zombies started to close in on him, apparently not finding the threat of decapitation enough of a worry to back off.

"I told you before," he said as he raised his sword, "I don't need you anymore."

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For the next ten minutes the council members were completely silent as Tsunade gave them the rundown of what had transpired in the last twelve hours. No one spoke, no one asked any questions, no one dared to even move, such was the magnitude of Tsunade's information.

She showed them the photographs, the medical reports, and anything and everything related to the problem at hand. She even told them of how the ANBU found no trace of Might Gai or Rock Lee, leading to the possibility that they had four "zombie-nin" on the loose.

By the time Tsunade was finished everyone present was up-to-date and fully informed with everything revolving around "Mission Zero" as it was being referred to. Of course when she turned the floor over to them she wasn't the least bit surprised as the council descended into frantic arguments over how to deal with the situation.

"We need to call back every team immediately!"

"That would be a huge financial loss for the village! We'd be looking disaster economically and politically!"

"And what of out people? With this infection…"

With one raised hand Tsunade ended the petty squabbles "Enough, we do not have time to argue amounts ourselves while the potential for this situation to get out of hand grows every minute. I brought you here so that we can properly address this threat and plan accordingly." Her eyes traced over the faces of those present, reminding them all why she was Hokage. "I will not jeopardize the safety of this village because its leaders couldn't remain calm during times of crisis."

"Hokage-sama," Hiashi spoke up, notably more composed than before. "You said this was an infection, is a cure possible?"

Tsunade let out a sigh, desperately wishing she could tell him what he wanted to hear. "No, a cure is not yet possible. However, in my professional opinion a cure may not be possible at all."

"But Hokage-sama…!"

"I have already discussed this with out chief medical officers," Tsunade cut him off, flashbacks of talking to Naruto flashing through her mind. "While yes, the brains of the infected are mostly intact their bodies are composed of nothing but dead tissue kept functional by a modified Chakra system. Even if whatever was causing this could be removed we'd be left with a dead body and medical science has no way of regenerating dead tissue."

The dejected look on Hiashi's face tore at Tsunade's face though she did not show it, unable to afford looking weak in such a situation. "I'm sorry Hiashi, I know this must be difficult for you."

"Then what are we to do?" a member of the Akimichi clan spoke up, "You said so yourself that they cannot be knocked out or tranquilized, and any attempt to lock up Kakashi or Gai would be nearly futile!"

"I should think the answer should be obvious."

All eyes turned to Danzo in his seat amongst the other council members. While the ex-commander of the disbanded ROOT division of ANBU no longer had an official title as such, he still held significant influence amongst the village hierarchy.

"We have all dealt with missing-nin before," he said with no reservations. "The only option we have before us is to exterminate them.

Had Tsunade's presence not been a factor the room would have descended into open hostility again right then and there. "Are you out of your mind?" Hiashi scowled, "These are not missing-nin we are dealing with. These are…"

Danzo did not back down. "Ninja that have betrayed out village and are now presumed to be acting in ways that would harm our village further. The law on traitors is absolute."

Hiashi snorted at the man's choice of words, "You would know all about that, wouldn't you?"

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"You know damn well…"

The entire room suddenly shook violently as Tsunade slammed her fists on the table sending several members of the council falling out of their chairs and sending cracks through the decade's old wood. "That's enough, both of you."

Hiashi quickly controlled himself, bowing his head respectively towards Tsunade. "My apologies Hokage-sama, I spoke rashly and out of turn."

Tsunade unclenched her fists, allowing several of the older council members to let out a collective sigh of relief. "You are forgiven Hiashi. And I must apologize because I have to agree with Danzo's proposal"

Danzo's wrinkled brow raised itself just slightly, the closest the war-hungry man could get to a smile. "Thank you Hoka-"

"Quite," she ordered, not willing to sit through such false declarations of respect. "This was not an easy decision for me to make, but with no cure in site and the potential for this to upset the entire ninja world we must take the most direct course of action to ensure this does not spread any further that it already has."

"As of this moment, I am declaring any present and future individuals that," she still couldn't believe she was saying this, "return from the dead to be considered an enemy of the village and to be killed immediately. Anyone who contracts this condition will be immediately quarantined and, assuming they too rise as zombies, executed."

No one spoke out against her, each of them seeing the necessity in such actions. Even Hiashi, his eyes clenched in anger, remained silent.

"Now then," Tsunade continued, hating herself for signing the death warrant for four Leaf-nin that, for all intents and proposes, were guilty only of becoming trapped in one of Orochimaru's sick plots. "Let's discuss how we're going to deal with this."

With that the members of the council nodded and readied themselves for a long and sleepless night.

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The scene had descended into chaos as Orochimaru and Sasuke fought off the zombies side-by-side but not together. They were outnumbered twenty-to-one which was more of a hampering for Orochimaru than Sasuke who moved through the crowd of undead as if they were standing still, easily severing limbs and heads with a single slice of his sword. For Orochimaru the problem was one of size rather than skill. His large size gave him limited mobility in the confined room giving Gai and the other zombies ample opportunity to attack. Like ants they crawled over him, biting and tearing at his body and bleeding out onto the floor.

Orochimaru crushed one of his attackers against the wall splattering his brains over its surface. This was getting ridicules. He created these creatures, made them what they were! And now they sought his destruction as well as his new body's? Who did they think he was?

"Sasuke!" he hissed, "the escape path!"

Sasuke turned to him, cutting another zombie in half as he did, "You still believe I will allow you to follow me?"

The snake smiled, "All that mattersss is keeping your precious body safe, Ssssauke-kun." With one swipe of his tail he sent ten zombies flying across the room over Sasuke's head leaving a clear path towards the exit. "Go boy, I will survive this and take what is owed from you in the future."

Sasuke face remained expressionless. For a brief moment teacher and student locked eyes, conveying their contempt for one another one last time before Sasuke made his break. The surviving zombies saw what he was trying and quickly gave chase but they were no match for Sasuke's speed. The Uchiha moved past them leaving them grasping at thin air as he cleared the room in three strides and easily made his way into the dark passageway…right into the arms of several zombies.

Cold, undead hands wrapped around him as he collided headfirst with a group of zombies that had apparently been hiding in wait for him. Caught completely by surprise Sasuke jerked wildly in their vise-like grips and thrust his sword into the nearest one only to lose it as he fell back and took it with him. Wasting no time they dragged Sasuke to the ground and fell upon him, digging their jaws into his yielding flesh.

Orochimaru watched in agonizing fury as his apprentice was torn apart piece by piece "SASUKE!" he screamed as blood and guts flew through the air above the hoard. With dozens of hands pulling, tearing, and digging into any piece of Sasuke's body they could get their hands on it was going to be anything but a quick and clean death.

With a roar Orochimaru flung himself forward at the attackers, fangs bared and ready to tear them apart. He was stopped short as Might Gai grasped his tail with both hands and YANKED him back, nearly breaking the snake's spinal cord with the force of it. Orochimaru twisted himself around and lifted his tail in the air, taking Gai with it, and slammed it down on the ground. Gai hit the ground, losing his grasp of the tail and only having a seconds thought before he felt it slamming down on him again.

Blind with rage Orochimaru pounded his tail against Gai's prone form over and over again, intent on crushing every trace of him from the Earth.

"YOU RUINED EVERYTHING!"

SLAM!

"YEARS OF PLANNING!"

SLAM!

"I'LL KILL YOU! YOU AND YOU'RE ENTIRE FUCKING VILLAGE!

SLAM!

Now, under normal situations Gai probably would have replied with a quip about the power of youth and love, he probably would have rolled out from underneath one of the tail strikes and made a tactical retreat, he probably wouldn't have unlocked the sixth gate and prepared to go all-out against one of the legendary three.

But unfortunately for Orochimaru, Gai wasn't home anymore.

Orochimaru felt the sudden spike of charka underneath his tail as Gai let out a deafening scream, one that echoed throughout the room with blind rage. With nothing on his mind other than tearing the creature in front of him apart and devouring him Gai took both his hands and plunged them into Orochimaru's body and RIPPED through him, tearing off the tip of his tail and jumping into the air in a shower of flesh and blood.

Orochimaru matched Gai's ferocity and shot forward ready to dissolve the Green Beast with his acid-tipped fangs but was thrown off as Gai disappeared again faster that he could register. He reappeared once more underneath Orochimaru's head and with a devastating kick sent the snake soaring into the air. Orochimaru hit the roof hard and Gai was on him faster than he could blink, slamming both feet atop Orochimaru's skull and sending him crashing into he floor leaving a Orochimaru-sized crater going several feet into the ground.

Weakly Orochimaru raised his head knowing Gai would soon be on the attack again. His forked tongue flicked out to taste the air, blood mixed with the sent of ozone, as he readied himself.

A searing pain suddenly erupted from his tail and quickly shot up through his entire body. Orochimaru had no time to scream as he realized what was happening, his final thoughts being of Sasuke as Kakashi's chidori sliced though his brain.

Every zombie in the room stopped what they were doing to watch as the severed halves of Orochimaru spasmed wildly in the air spraying blood everywhere like a macabre fountain. Dozens of white snakes fell from the dyeing creature in attempts to escape, many crushed underneath the death throws of Orochimaru's true form. Finally, in one last death spasm, both halves fell to the ground in a bloody heap spilling internal organs and snake blood out onto the floor.

A cheer erupted from the ranks of the dead as the descended on the corpse of their long-hated tormentor, greedily grasping squirming snakes and cooked flesh and shoving it into their mouths. Gai was the first to stake his claim, taking the contents of Orochimaru's skull for himself. The only other zombie that attempted to take some of the delicious brains for himself quickly found his arms ripped off, a signal for the others to just enjoy their own meal.

Kakashi watched from across the room, his bloody hand still crackling with remnants of the chidori that finally brought down the man responsible for all their misery. Pulling down his mask Kakashi licked some of the blood of his had as he watched the hoard devour what remained of the legendary Sannin, many of them forgoing delicacy and simply shoving snakes into their mouths whole, bones and all.

Kakashi wasn't sure how he felt about this turn of events. Sure, he had had many thoughts about killing the snake that had ruined so many lives himself and had relished the act itself, but now that the deed was done he wasn't sure what to think.

Leaving the others to their meal Kakashi turned to the trio of zombies that remained around the body of some other poor soul. Having eaten his fill in the holding cells he was content to let the others gorge themselves, right now he had some questions.

"Where's Sasuke?" he asked them, having not seen his former student since the incident before.

One of the zombies looked up from their meal, glaring at Kakashi. "We killed him," he said with an arrogant tone, "and don't think you're getting any just because you took down Orochimaru. This one's ours."

Ignoring the blatant stupidity of Kakashi raised his eyebrow in skepticism. "Kakashi raised his eyebrow in skepticism. "You killed Sasuke?"

"Yeah," the zombie replied, insulted by Kakashi's tone. "It was easy."

Kakashi took a peak at the body lying at their feet. "It's just that it looks to me like you're eating a log."

All three zombies looked at each other, blinked, then looked back down to see that yes, they had been eating a log.

"That would explain the texture," one of them said, spitting out a piece of bark.

Kneeling down Kakashi examined the piece of badly damaged wood. "Genjustu," Kakashi explained. "I wouldn't feel too bad about it. You guys really had no chance against an experienced user of the sharingan."

Trailing a lazy eye across the room Kakashi examined the area, trying to piece together what happened amongst the destruction and dead bodies. _"Clever Sasuke, using a mass genjutsu to fool all of them into thinking your dead; your skills have really grown exponentially these last view years." _He looked down the dark passageway that he could only assume Sasuke had taken to escape. It was more than likely that Sasuke was well on his way out of here.

"No sense in chasing him now," Kakashi told the others. "At the speed he can move and with several minutes head start he would be impossible to find by the time we reached the end of that tunnel."

A single white snake slithered past Kakashi's foot which he snatched up by the tail, raising it up to his face to study. The copy-nin appreciated its desperate struggles as it bit into his arm despite the horrid taste fruitlessly trying to inject poison into dried veins.

Standing strait up again Kakashi tossed the creature to one of the three zombies now pulling splinters out of there tongues. "Make sure to eat every last one of those things. Don't leave a single trace of him left."

The zombies all nodded in understanding before breaking into a fight over the snake, each one grasping for it and pulling it apart as it screeched in agony. Kakashi signed to himself and turned towards the exit. Might as well see if there were any prisoners that hadn't been infected yet; No sense leaving them locked up to starve to death.

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In the past five hours Orochimaru's lair had been turned into a bloodbath. Ever cell and laboratory had been torn apart in search of fresh meat by the growing number of zombies that prowled the corridors. The screams that had been echoing through the hallways had died down hours ago leaving the complex dead silent save for the shuffling of feat and sounds of feeding.

Kakashi walked down an empty hallway lit only by a dying florescent light bulb that sputtered on and off. He carefully avoided stepping on the dead bodies that lay strewn about the hallway though that didn't keep him from leaving bloody footprints everywhere he stepped. The bodies were so heavily mutilated and the gore so extreme that the entire floor had a fine layer of congealing blood on it making it impossible to walk without feeling it squishing beneath your feet.

Though he was somewhat hungry he didn't bother eating any of these leftovers. He had found that his appetite only seemed to be sated by fresh meat; anything left out for more than a couple hours no longer did anything for him. Not that that was stopping any of the other zombies. The last large group Kakashi had seen had been fighting over the scraps left behind from the last of the prisoners. They had been at each others throats over a few scraps of meat, damaging their bodies even further. One even tried to take a bite out of one of the other zombies but quickly learned that their kind tasted horrible. Kakashi didn't know if this was true or not but he was in no hurry to find out.

The familiar sound of bickering could be heard up ahead from behind an open door. Kakashi stuck his head inside and saw Neji sitting around a pile of broken test tubes and scattered notes eating the remnants of a severed leg. Lee stood behind him doing a one-armed handstand (not that he could do anything else) and was pushing himself up and down in some kind of training exercise, apparently giving Neji a very hard time.

"Come' on Neji, let's spar!"

Neji took another bite of the leg. "Go. Away."

Lee did a flipped on his hand and landed on his feet, punching the air in protest. "But I have to practice my one-armed techniques! What would Gai-sensei say if he saw you slacking off?"

"I'm eading Lee"

"Hey," Kakashi called out, interrupting the two before it got any worse. "We're leaving."

The two of them nodded and stood at attention, ready to follow Kakashi wherever he was going. At some point he had become the unofficial leader of this four-man team, having apparently taken their transformation better than anyone so far. Kakashi thought about that, wondering what that said about his mental state prior to becoming a zombie.

The three of them made their way though the dark halls led by Neji's Byakugen. They avoided the larger gangs roaming the complex, most of which were already succumbing to in-fighting over scraps of food and leadership roles, and slowly their way towards the surface.

"_So this is the future of ninja," _Kakashi thought to himself. A lone zombie ran past them, probably with no idea were he was going. _"So far I'm not impressed."_

Finally they reached familiar territory as they stepped over the twisted scrap of metal that had once been the door to Cell Block 5, broken down curtsey of Gai. It wouldn't be long before they were once again at the entrance to the lair; though Kakashi had the sudden feeling he was forgetting something.

"Hey!"

Oh, right. Him.

The trio paused to look down at Kabuto's severed head, still lying in the corner they had left him. He looked up at them, squinting in anger. Kakashi saw his glasses laying a few inches away from his face, probably driving the traitorous medic insane.

"I'm hungry," he told them.

"I'm sure you are," Kakashi nodded in response. Gesturing to the others they continued their walk leaving Kabuto behind.

"Wait!" he called after them, "You can't just leave me here!"

"Yes, we can," Kakashi called back, not bothering to turn around.

"No! Wait!" Kabuto screamed after the three of them as they kept on walking. He could only scream and watch as their backs disappeared into the darkness paying no heed to his cries.

Kabuto screamed, jerking himself back and forth in a vain attempt to move himself. Without arms or legs though his actions proved useless and he only managed to push his glasses further down his face. His eyes darted back and forth, his vision clouded without his glasses and only adding to his panic.

"Hello?" he whispered into the darkness. "Is someone there?"

No one replied.

His bottom lip quivered as he lay there in the floor, "I'm so hungry…"

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The three ninja eventually reached the exit for Orochimaru's lair and stepped out underneath the night sky. A dark forest surrounded them, completely devoid of any life. Not a single animal or insect could be heard amongst the foliage, it was all quite and still.

Kakashi felt that he would probably have to get used to that.

Lee suddenly jumped into the air excitedly. "Gai-sensei!" he shouted before rushing past Neji and Kakashi.

Sure enough Gai was already outside. He was sitting on a stump a few yards away from the hidden entrance staring up at the moon. His body was almost completely covered in Orochimaru's blood and bits of white snake-skin giving him and odd glow underneath the light of the full moon.

"Hey Gai," Kakashi said to his friend. "You ok?"

Gai weakly nodded, not looking at his rival. "I…I can't do that again Kakashi."

"Not sure what you mean," Kakashi replied, hoping that he wouldn't have to sit through another speech of how wrong their situation was.

"The gates…I can't unlock the gates anymore. I can't. I won't."

Lee scratched his head in confusion. "What do you mean Gai-sensei? You were able to go toe-to-toe with Orochimaru when you did that!"

"That's just it Lee, I shouldn't have been able to do that. I…I was too powerful. I couldn't control myself."

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "Damn it Gai, we're all going through that…."

"NOT LIKE THIS!" Gai snapped at him. "Not like this…"

The other three all watched Gai warily as he sat there, his fists shaking as he tried to regain his composure.

"I…I wasn't myself. The hunger was just so overwhelming that I just blocked out everything else." He looked up at Kakashi, suddenly looking very afraid. "I can't even remember fighting him! All I remember is ripping apart that door and feeling something take hold of me, something…something else…"

Kakashi placed a hand on Gai's shoulder, who got nothing out of the human contact other than an unsatisfying numbness. "Alright Gai, you don't have to open the gates again if you don't want to. I'm sure we can handle things without it from here on in anyway."

Gai nodded in thanks, "The same goes for Lee."

"But Gai-sensei…!"

"I mean it Lee!" Gai yelled at his student, "That technique is now forbidden at all costs!"

Not happy with the situation but not daring to go against the brilliant word of his sensei, Lee nodded.

"Alright then, now that that's settled..." Kakashi told them, "We need to decide what we're going next."

"Whad aboud Konoha?" Neji said, not missing a beat. "We could easily ged drough dere debences wid our cobined knowledge ob dere securidy."

"Yeah!" Lee agreed enthusiastically, "We could get in and infect their strongest to help to! They would not see it coming!"

"The benefit of surprise is still on our side…" Gai added, finally getting out of his slump as the subject of food came up.

The three of them turned to Kakashi, waiting to see what his opinion would be. The copy-nin just stood there and stared back, "Are you all out of your minds? Have you forgotten what you've learned as ninja in just a few hours?"

The others all looked back at each other, confused. Sure, they felt bad about what they were doing but it's not liked they wanted to! The hunger was just to strong for any of them to control.

"If we were to attack Konoha alone," Kakashi continued, "we'd be annihilated. Konoha houses some of the strongest shinobi in ninja world. Naruto and the others would have long since arrived and told them everything, and if Tsunade is half the Hokage I think she is she'll already be taking countermeasures to deal with us."

"So what can we do?" asked Lee.

"We go someplace that's already to destabilized and chaotic to be able to keep us from gaining a foothold," Kakashi answered. "We're going to Rain Country."

I just realize dI havn't updated A Few Seconds Difference in over a year! Holy crap! Could have sworn it was less...

I'll be working on that next. Hopefully you'll all see something soon.

In the meantime, please leave a review!


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